Notes on Bright's disease of the kidney, as observed chiefly in the clinical ward of the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital, at Bombay / by C. Morehead.

Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on Bright's disease of the kidney, as observed chiefly in the clinical ward of the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital, at Bombay / by C. Morehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    following observation is made :—u It will be an interesting in- quiry to determine whether habitual opium-eating may not pre- dispose to or excite the disease, just as habitual spirit-drinking has been ascertained to do ; whether, in fact, the cachexia arising from habitual opium-eating may not in many instances be traceable to the presence of Blight's disease. In the Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science, for the month of June 1850, there is a very interesting communication on the habitual use of opium, by Mr. Little, of Sinsapoor. In this paper it is observed, relative to the effects of the habitual use of opium, and among affections of the kidneys Bright's disease is not uncommon. The relation of this disease, then, to the habitual use of opium, is a question of interest, and deserving further investigation. The frequent apparent connection between Blight's disease and the dropsical affections consecutive on scarlatina, has been a subject of remark by writers on Bright's disease. But I believe that the etiology of the disease, as observed in this part of India, must be independent of any relation of this kind, for scarlatina, if it is ever met with, must be of very rare occurrence indeed. I have myself never seen a case of the disease in India, nor, among the professional friends of whom I have made the inquiry, have I met one who felt certain that he had ever met with it. V. The principal secondary affections; the number of instances in which death has taken place in the ivay of coma. Of the thirty-one cases,* there were affected with— Dropsy, anasarca, ascites.. 24 Heart affections 2 Diarrhoea and dysentery.... 11 Erysipelas 1 Bronchitis 10 Pneumonia 1 Dyspepsia 4 Cirrhosis 1 In regard to the manner in which death took place in the fourteen cases which proved fatal in hospital, as well as in the * It need hardly be observed that the aggregate of the statement exceeds the number of individuals affected, because several were the subject of more than one secondary affection.