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 826 KIDDERMINSTER KIDNEY in 1836, entered the Genesee conference, and was stationed at Rochester, N. Y. In 1837 he went as missionary to Brazil, and during 1839 traversed the whole eastern coast from San Paolo to Para, lie introduced and circulated the Scriptures in the Portuguese in all the principal cities of the empire, and preached the first Protestant sermon on the waters of the Amazon. He returned to the United States in 1840, and in 1844 was appointed official editor of the Sunday school publications and tracts, and corresponding secretary of the Sunday school union of the Methodist Episcopal church, a post he held for 12 years. Besides editing the "Sunday School Advocate," he compiled and edited more than 800 volumes of books for Sunday school libraries. He was likewise the organizer of the conference Sunday school unions, and one of the originators of Sunday school conventions and institutes. In 1856 he was appointed professor of practical theology in the Garrett Biblical institute at Evanston, 111., where he remained till 1871, when he was called to a like chair in Drew theological seminary at Madison, N. J., where he still remains (1874). His publications include a translation from the Portuguese of the work of Feijo entitled "Demonstration of the Ne- cessity of abolishing a constrained Clerical Celibacy " (Philadelphia, 1844); "Mormonism and the Mormons" (1844); "Sketches of a Residence and Travels in Brazil " (2 vols., 1845) ; conjointly with the Rev. J. 0. Fletcher, "Brazil and the Brazilians" (1857); "Homi- letics" (New York, 1868); and "The Chris- tian Pastorate " (1871). KIDDERMINSTER, a municipal and parlia- mentary borough of Worcestershire, England, situated on the Stour, 13 m. N. of Worcester ; pop. of the municipal borough in 1871, 19,463; of the parliamentary borough, 31,747. The streets are irregularly built and the houses are generally small. The most important manu- facture is of carpets, for which Kidderminster has long been famous ; but worsted and other woollen goods, damask silks, leather, &c., are made. The Stafford and Worcester canal, and the Oxford, Worcester, and Wolverhampton railway, pass through the town. The manor of Kidderminster was once the property of the poet Waller. Here for many years Rich- ard Baxter officiated as pastor. KIDNAPPING, the stealing and carrying away or secreting of any person. It is regarded by the law as an aggravated species of false im- prisonment, and includes the legal elements of that offence. At the common law kidnapping is a misdemeanor, and punishable by fine and imprisonment. The same punishment is adopt- ed by the state statutes in this country. KIDNEY, a special organ in vertebrated ani- mals, whose office is to separate from the blood certain effete substances, to be thrown out of the system in the urine ; it has no direct con- nection with any of the nutritive operations concerned in digestion. Taking these organs in man as typical, the kidneys are situated in the lumbar region, one on each side of the spine, on a level with the last two dorsal and the first two lumbar vertebrro ; they are of a brownish red color, bean-shaped, flattened from before backward, and grooved on the in- terior border for the great vessels ; the ante- rior surface is in relation on the right with the duodenum and the ascending colon, and on the left with the descending colon, the posterior surface is imbedded in fat, resting against the muscles; the upper extremity is embraced by the supra-renal capsules ; the lower extremity, which is somewhat smaller than the upper, projects a little further downward upon the right side than the left. The kidneys are well supplied with blood, in accordance with the importance of their function ; the renal arteries come directly from the aorta, and the large veins terminate in the vena cava ; the nerves Human Kidney, In Vertical Section. a. Cortical substance, b. Medullary substance, c. Conical bundles of the medullary substance, d. Membranous ducts, into which the conical bundles are received, e. Pelvis of the kidney. /. Ureter, g. Eenal artery. A. Renal vein. come from the renal plexus of the sympathetic system. They are covered by a thin, firm, transparent cellular envelope ; internally they are composed of two substances, an exterior or cortical and an interior or medullary. From the researches of Bowman, Gerlach, Kolliker, and others, it is ascertained that the cortical substance, the seat of the greater part of the secretory process, is made up of a great num- ber of uriniferous tubes, much convoluted and inosculating with each other, and lined with epithelial cells of a spheroidal and projecting form ; scattered through the plexus formed by these tubes and the blood vessels are dark points which have been called corpora Mai- pighiana from their discoverer ; these last are convoluted masses of minute blood vessels in- cluded in flask-like dilatations of the nrinif- erous tubes, forming a close relation between the circulating and the secreting systems.