Page:The third Huxley lecture.pdf/42

38 few days unaccustomed to the urine, which then acts upon it with irritating effect, and the result may be a violent general nervous commotion in the shape of a rigor. This may be immediately followed by complete suppression of secretion by the kidneys; and if this does not pretty soon pass off it is fatal. Such was the case with the patient to whom I am referring. In spite of hot applications to the skin—which sometimes work like a charm in such circumstances, operating, as it would appear, by distracting, so to speak, the attention of the nervous system from the affected organs—that man died within a few hours of the rigor. On post-mortem, examination the kidneys presented on section an appearance that I have never forgotten; scarlet redness throughout what in other respects appeared to be perfectly sound structure.

The previous healthiness of the patient seems to preclude the idea that this grave disorder of the kidneys could have existed before the rigor. We are therefore led to believe that the prostration of vital energy which inflammatory congestion implies was caused by the irritation in the urethra. If such was the case, the remoteness of the kidneys from the source of disturbance makes it certain that the disorder was brought about through the nervous system. This effect could not possibly be produced, like arterial relaxation, by failure of the nerves to act. For we know that the tissues retain their vital energies for a considerable period after entire severance from the body: as is illustrated by the success of Thiersch's