A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RENAL AND BILIARY DISEASE IN WHICH CALCULI FIGURE PROMINENTLY.

Abstract

There is a striking similarity between renal disease in which calculi figure prominently and in diseases of the liver or biliary tract in which gallstones are formed. The analogy goes beyond the fact that a hard and sometimes irregular mass has been formed by reason of perverted function in a soft canal or pouch, and that attempts at getting rid of this obstacle are attended by varying degrees of pain and followed by more or less serious results. The comparisons can be carried to the formation of these bodies, the symptoms produced by them and the pathologic conditions resulting therefrom. This fact makes a diagnosis sometimes exceedingly difficult when the right kidney is at fault, since the relational anatomy is so intimate and the nerve supply of the viscera involved is so complex and extensive. CONDITIONS FAVORING CALCULUS FORMATION. There seems to be an imperative law of our physical being