AZOTURIA. 
29 
Now, from a pathological standpoint there is really no dis¬ 
ease of the blood, but rather of organs, and as we study the con¬ 
ditions of the blood, the blood-making structures are mainly the 
bone-marrow, the lymph glands and spleen ; the blood-destroy¬ 
ing organs, of which the liver and spleen are important ones. 
The functions of the lymph glands are to form blood corpus¬ 
cles, to filter lymph, for this flows between the cells of the 
lymphadenoid tissues. In this way injurious substances are 
prevented from being spread in the circulation at times. 
Dr. Wood says that hemaglobin causes the dark cherry- 
brown color in blood. The enormous blood pressure forces the 
capillary circulation through the tissues. 
Kidney. —Now, as to what part the kidney takes in this 
disease, as a preventive organ, and to what extent the nerve 
functions are involved, as one with the other, to cause the dis¬ 
ease of azoturia. 
Pathologists usually divide the course of a disease into three 
stages or periods,—first, that of increase ; second, that of acme, 
in which the symptoms remain stationary ; third, that of de¬ 
cline. But these stages are far from existing in all diseases, or 
following one another in regular succession. In acute disease 
alone are they presented with distinctness and regularity. In 
the disease of azoturia, which breaks out suddenly in its full 
force, so that the first stage is wanting, and others which ter¬ 
minate 'abruptly in death without any period of decline. 
It will be quite legitimate to attribute to it only one part of 
the phenomena which might supervene when the impermeabil¬ 
ity of the kidney is such that it can no longer eliminate the 
toxic substances produced by the organism, in proportion to 
their formation. With a kidney acting well, things may not go 
further, but if the renal emunction is insufficient, we may see 
developed a fraction of uraemic intoxication through simple ex¬ 
aggeration of intestinal fermentation. While the kidney itself 
may not be really diseased, it will be sufficient, for the quantity 
of toxic material introduced into the blood should exceed the 
activity of the kidney and its ability to eliminate it. 
