Medico-Chirurgical Review,
[No. 19 of a Decennial Series.]
OCTOBER 1, 1838, тo JANUARY 1, 1839.
I. URINARY DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT. By Robert Willis, M.D., Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Physician to the Royal Infirmary for Children, &c.
II. TRAITÉ DES MALADIES DES REINS, ÉTUDIÉES EN ELLE-MEMES ET DANS LEURS RAPPORTS AVEC LES MALADIES DES URETRES DE LA VESSIE, DE LA PROSTATE, DE L'URETRE. Par P. Rayer, Médecin de l'Hôpital de la Charité, Paris, 1837-38. OUR readers are aware that at different times we have brought the subject of diseases of the urinary organs before them. Those diseases are important, numerous, and common. They have grown into consequence with the growth of pathology, for this has shewn that complaints referred to other parts had their essential seat in these regions, and that the disorders of the latter were both an index and a result of general constitutional disturbance. This circumstance has contributed to separate these maladies from the confined class of local alterations, and has brought within the range of science what before was the prey of the ignorant and designing quack.
To be a water-doctor" was formerly a subject of merriment. The astrologer the Katerfelto of the place was the man. In describing Sidrophel, Butler writes
"To whom all people, far and near,
On deep importances repair;
When geese and pullen are seduc'd,
And sows of sucking-pigs are chows'd;
When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep,
And chickens languish of the pip;
When butter does refuse to come,
And love proves cross and humorsome;
To him with questions, and with urine,
They for discov'ry flock or curing."
But Sidrophel's occupation's gone. Syphilis, the "gravel," the stone, are no longer the no-man's land of physic, but have been investigated, and must henceforth be successfully cultivated, by men of high general attainments. Those attainments have to grapple with no trifling difficulties for these complaints, perhaps more than any others in surgery, require keen analysis in their discrimination, and the exercise of judgment in their treatment.