DISEASES OF THE URINARY ORGANS. 145 
‘supplemented by dram doses of Dover’s powder. Pain may be 
soothed by dram doses of bromid of potassium. Boiled flaxseed 
may be added to the drinking water, also thrown into the rectum 
as an injection, and blankets saturated with hot water should be per- 
sistently applied to the loins. This may be followed by a very thin 
pulp of the best ground mustard made with tepid water, rubbed in 
against the direction of the hair and covered with paper and a 
blanket. This may be kept on for an hour, or until the skin thickens 
and the hair stands erect. It may then be rubbed or sponged off and 
the blanket reapplied. When the action of the bowels has been 
started it may be kept up by a daily dose of 2 or 3 ounces of 
Glauber’s salt. 
During recovery a course of bitter tonics (nux vomica 1 scruple, 
ground gentian root 4 drams) should be given. The patient should 
also be guarded against cold, wet, and any active exertion for some 
time after all active symptoms have subsided. 
CHRONIC INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS. 
Causes.—Chronic inflammation of the kidneys is more commonly 
associated with albumen and casts in the urine than the acute form, 
and in some instances these conditions of the urine may be the only 
prominent symptoms of the disease. Though it may supervene on 
blow, injuries, and exposures, it is much more commonly connected 
with faulty conditions of the system—as indigestion, heart disease, 
lung or liver disease, imperfect blood formation, or assimilation; in 
short, it is rather the attendant on a constitutional infirmity than on 
a simple local injury. 
It may be associated with various forms of diseased kidneys, as 
shrinkage (atrophy), increase (hypertrophy), softening, red conges- 
tion, white enlargement, etc., so that it forms a group of diseases 
rather than a disease by itself. 
Symptoms.—The symptoms may include stiffness, weakness, and 
increased. sensibility of the loins, and modified secretion of urine 
(increase or suppression), or the flow may be natural. Usually it 
contains albumen, the quantity furnishing a fair criterion of the grav- 
ity of the affection, and microscopic casts, also most abundant in bad 
cases. Dropsy, manifested in swelled legs, is a significant symptom, 
and if the effusion takes place along the lower line of the body or in 
chest or abdomen, the significance is increased. A scurfy, unthrifty 
skin, lack-luster hair, inability to sustain severe or continued exer- 
tion, poor or irregular appetite, loss of fat and flesh, softness of the 
muscles, and pallor of the eyes and nose are equally suggestive. So 
are skin eruptions of various kinds. Any one or more of these symp- 
toms would warrant an examination of the urine for albumen and 
casts, the finding of which signifies renal inflammation. 
36444°—16——10 
