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 *uated outside of the peritoneum. It necessitates the removal of the kidney, however, and when for any reason one kidney is removed the other increases in size and does double work to compensate for the loss. Removal of both kidneys means death. Sometimes the kidney becomes loose and moves about, a condition known as floating kidney. Perinephritic abscess is abscess in the loose fatty tissue about the kidney.

—The urinary organs viewed from behind.

The Ureters, one for each kidney, are tubes the size of a goose quill and about fourteen inches long, extending from the hilum of the kidney to the base of the bladder. They have three coats, an internal mucous, a muscular, and an external fibrous coat, this last being continous with the cortex of the kidney and the fibrous tissue of the bladder. In the female the ureters may be felt through the wall of the vagina as they come into the bladder. In tubercular disease of one kidney the ureter becomes inflamed and enlarged and through the vagina feels almost like a lead pencil, a sure diagnostic sign.

The Bladder and Urethra.—In their course to the bladder the ureters pass from the abdominal into the