only to St. Peter's, in Rome), St. Paul's, in London, even I was somewhat shocked to find therein the tomb of Lord Nelson, grand and beautiful as it was; for I remembered that on the eve of that battle, the victory of which cost him so dear, his last words were: "A peerage, or Westminster Abby." And later in the same day, when it was my privilege to visit that grand old Abby, and observe the names over the ashes of the grand old warriors among whom he would have rested, even I scarce wondered at the seeming vanity of this great captain. And what better proof could one have of my assertion that this vanity ran through all ranks and ages, than to read in that funeral pile the grandest names known to England's history?-aye, even the grandest of history's historians; for we have Puncheon's authority for saying that "if McCauley had one ambition dearer than the rest, it was that he might lie in that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations be buried, and the walls of Westminster Abby do enclose him in their tender and solemn gloom." And so these illustrations might be multiplied ad infinitum (and, may be, ad nauseam), showing how difficult it is to separate entirely the material from the immaterial. Surely this is unnecessary, and so I will close my remarks by reciting a poem of five verses, treating respectively one verse each of-1st, the skull; 2d, the eyes; 3d, the tongue; 4th, the hands; 5th, the feet. The history of the poem being a very curious one, I trust you will pardon me for relating it before reciting it: There was held one night in London, at the vast hall of the Physicians and Surgeon's College, a medical meeting, largely attended. Next morning, the porter discovered a bit of paper between the teeth of the skeleton; withdrawing it, this poem was found written there No one claiming it, a hundred pounds was offered to its author, but no one has, in all these years, claimed the reward: 1ST. Behold this ruin! This was a skull Once of ethereal spirit full. This empty cell was life's retreat; This space was thought's mysterious seat. Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear, 2D. Beneath this mouldering canopy, Once shone the bright and busy eye- But start not its dismal void If social love that eye employed, If with no lawless fire it gleamed, But thro' the dews of kindness beamed, That eye shall be forever bright When sun and stars are sunk in night. 3D. Within this hollow cavern hung The ready, swift and tuneful tongue. If falsehood's honey it disdained If, when it could not praise, 'twas chained If bold in virtue's cause it spoke, Yet gentle concord never broke That silent tongue shall plead for thee, WHEN TIME UNVEILS ETERNITY. 4TH. Say, did these white hands delve the mine, Or with the envied rubies shine? To hew the rock, or wear the gem, Can little now avail to them; Or comfort to the mourner brought, 5тн, Avails it whether, bare or shod, If grandeur's guilty bride they spurned, RECENT ADVANCES IN OUR KNOWLEDGE OF KIDNEY DISEASES. BY W. D. BIZZELL, M. D., OF MOBILE. The subject on which I have the honor to lead at this hour is of so much importance, and its literature has become so vast, that to even give you an account of the more modern researches would require more time and patience than you are prepared to exercise on this occasion. Though so much has been said, and though so much labor and experimental research has been expended, in the elucidation of the problems connected with the affections of the kidney, characized by albuminuria, since the studies of Bright rendered his name immortal, yet many questions connected therewith are still subjudice. The strange anomaly has been presented of attempts to place several widely diverse affections under one name, and regard the wide differences in the etiology, pathology, &c., as simply progressive stages in one morphological process. But calm and philosophic study of the facts has, and is, emancipating the professional mind from this delusion, and we now know that it would be as incorrect and as absurd to place all the diseases of the kidney characterized by albuminuria under one name and regard them all as varying stages of one process, as thus to class pneumonia and tuberculosis. Some recent writers have even gone so far as to discard the name of Dr. Bright altogether from the nosology of these affections, and thus rid themselves of the embarassment incident to this use of his name. As an indispensable prerequisite to a study of the questions involved in the above, I will first briefly discuss the peculiar anatomical construction of the kidney, which eminently fits it for the performance of the delicate and important functions required of it. The kidneys, as you are aware, on section, exhibit an external portion which, in the recent state, is of a darker color and two or three lines in thickness, its deeper color being apparently due to the proportionately greater quantity of blood contained in its minute vessels, and the peculiar arrangement of the same. This is known as the cortical, or the true secreting portion. Just beneath this cortical portion is the somewhat paler portion, consisting of a series of lobules, pyramids or cones, with their bases directed outward, and in intimate connection with the cortical portion-this is the medullary or conducting portion of the kidney. The cortical portion of the kidney is made up of convoluted tubules glomeruli-and the accompanying blood vessels, bound together by a delicate areolar tissue, according to some, only as traces here and there, and isolated cells, in which, of course, ramify the branches of the lymphatics, the nerve distribution except to the capsule of the kidney, the pelvis and infundibula, is not so well determined. We will briefly discuss the peculiar anatomy of the glomerulus or Malpighian tufts, and its vascular arrangement of the convoluted tubules and the capillary net-work which surrounds them. I would here call your attention to the drawing, which is a copy after Schweiger Seidel,* and illustrates the peculiar construction and arrangement of the individual uriniferous tubules, commencing with a capsular expansion, the capsule of Bowman, a constriction or neck intervening, we have the tubuli contorti or convoluted tubule. This, after winding in various contortions, is suddenly constricted in diameter, and drops downward in the direction of the medullary portion, then abruptly bends upwards again in the direction of the cortical portion, forming an elongated narrow loop, known as Henle's loop, the ascending limb of which, you will observe, is more constricted than the descending, the former then becomes somewhat dilated, the so-called connecting tubule, and * *Chorcot, Bright's Disease, 1878, Wm. Wood & Co. |