The morbid effects of the retention in the blood of the elements of the urinary secretion / by William Wallace Morland.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The morbid effects of the retention in the blood of the elements of the urinary secretion / by William Wallace Morland. 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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    nature, and which necessitate, of course, a suspension of the medicine, or, at least, a marked diminution of the amount administered. Certain persons, also, are far more easily affected by chalybeates than others. In some, this amounts to a species of idiosyncrasy which precludes the use of such remedies, unless combined with other articles whose employment is often not desirable, and sometimes is inadmissible, for peculiar and varying reasons. Thus, we know persons whom iron, given in any considerable cpiantity, will purge persistently ; and in some such instances, if opium be combined with it for the purpose of restraining the action of the bowels, nausea takes the place of the diarrhoea—a species of intolerance of the medicament seems to exist. This is doubtless not uncommon. There are other manifestations sufficiently indicative of the powerful action of iron upon the system. But such phenomena, and those more especially mentioned above, are distinctly referable to considerable quantities of iron thrown into the organism at once, or gradually. As we have intimated, there appear to be no sufficient data whereupon to found any conclusions in reference to a possible patho- logical result of retention in the blood of the iron derived from the urine.1 With regard to the curative properties of iron in certain affections, the statements of Dr. Golding Bird have a peculiar fitness to our subject, lie says:— “ Among the remedies which appear most successful when food is not con- verted into healthy chyle, and an unhealthy state of the blood from the presence of imperfectly assimilated matters results, the preparations of iron deserve no- tice. I have repeatedly seen copious deposits of uric acid, in persons of low power, completely disappear pari passu with the cure of the pseudo-chlorotic symptoms present, by the use of this important drug.” This is literally “ killing two birds with one stone,” enriching the blood, and depurating it, also. There can be little to fear from iron when judiciously administered; it is to be hoped that any “ morbid effects” from large amounts existing in the circulation, in whatever way this may be produced, will by and by be satisfactorily and fully ascertained and explained. It would seem, however, that, had any very marked pathological phenomena been constantly, or even frequently, specially dependent upon accumulation from urinary obstruction or failure of due elimination, the acumen of the numerous competent observers of disease, so continually on the watch for such manifestations, would, ere this, have given us some positive ideas upon the subject. Ursematine. There are some interesting observations relative to urx- matine, which it seems desirable to present at this time. Ursematine is believed to be derived, in great measure, from the hsematine set free during 1 “ The analysis of the urine may prove useful for determining the amount of iron which enters the blood and circulation when it is taken as a medicine.” (Ihudi- chum.)