The health question box

Painful Urination Q. What is the cause of painful urination? A. There are many causes. The most com­mon cause perhaps is too highly concentrated urine, the result of insufficient water drinking. This condition is most likely to occur in the sum­mer time when the skin is active. The majority of persons drink too little water. The amount of liquid taken should be at least three or four pints a day. There are many other causes, as cystitis or inflammation of the bladder, inflam­mation of the urethrea, tuberculosis of the bladder, cancerous growths of the bladder, cal­culi, in men, enlargement of the prostate gland, in women displacement of the womb. When the cause is du e to concentrated urine it is speedily relieved by drinking large quantities of water, hot or cold, or hot lemonade. A warm sitz bath, temperature 101° to 103° F. for five minutes, 98° F. for ten minutes, a fomentation over the bladder or a large warm enem a will usually af­ford r e lief.

Albumin in the Urine Q. What form of kidney disorder is indi­cated by the presence of albumin in the urine? A. The temporary appearance of albumin in the urine indicates congestion of the kidneys, a very common result of constipation. When al­ bumin is constantly present, it indicates chronic degeneration of the kidne y s, the result, accord­ing to Profe s s o r Fisher, of an undue accum­ulation of acids in the tis s ues. The concentration of these acids in the kidney results in the dis­ solving of the cement substance which holds to­ gether the cells of the kidney. This cement substance appears in the urine as albumin.

Ammonia m the Urine Q. What is the cause of a very strong odor of ammonia in the urine? A. Ammonia is one of the products of de composition. Decomposing urine is accom­ panied by an ammoniacal odor. Decomposition taking place in the colon in constipation gives rise to the formation of ammonia, which may ap­ pear in the urine.

Urobilin Q. What is urobilin? A. Urobilin is produced by decomposition of the pigment of the bile. It is not found at all in normal urine. According to Muller the urobilin found in the intestine is largely absorbed and again excreted in the bile. It is only when the amount of urobilin is greater than the liver can thus dispose of that it is absorbed into the blood and appears in the urine. Lauder-Brunton some years ago observed that the bile from a biliary fistula lacks the bitter taste which is characteristic of vomited bile. It appears then that there is really some truth in the old medical theory that the bile becomes thick or concen­trated and that a person whose bile is in this con­dition may be benefited by getting rid of a large amount of the bile by vomiting or purging. This perhaps explains the temporary benefit derived from the use of calomel which so long main­tained the popularity of this harmful drug. The calomel by increasing the action of the bowels carries off a...

Senile Kidneys Q. Do the kidneys grow old? A . ''A man is as old as his arteries," said a famous French physician. It may be said with equal truth that a man is as old as his kidneys. Young kidneys are able to do many times the work normally required of them. As age ad­vances, the kidneys deteriorate as the result of their constant exposure to the influence of the poisons which they remove from the body. When the capacity of the kidneys is reduced to less than one-third the normal, life is soon ended through the accumulation in the blood and tissues of the poisons which it is the duty of the kidneys to remove.

Meat in Kidney Disease Q. Is a meat diet injurious in cases of kid­ney disease? A. The well-known experiments of Lehman show beyond question that the use of flesh foods requires more work of the kidneys than a vegetable diet. When living on an exclusively animal diet he found that the amount of urea eliminated by the kidneys was two and one-half times as much as when the diet was exclusively vegetable, and one and a half times as much when he partook of both animal and vegetable food. This shows beyond question that when the diet is exclusively animal, the kidneys have more than double the amount of work to do than when it is vegetable. This excessive work must ine v itably tend to the production of kidney disease, which is becoming a very common af­ fection among the English and Americans, who, as is well known, eat more animal food than any other civilized nation.

Floating Kidney Q. What treatment is best for a floating kidney? A. It generally needs only to be let alone. An abdominal bandage may be worn.

Removal of a Kidney Q. Can a person live long after one kidney has been removed? A. The removal of one kidney has been successfully accomplished in many cases. One kidney is able to eliminate the waste products which naturally escape through this outlet, at least under favorable conditions. Vitzou, after removal of one-half of one kid­ney, a month later extirpated the other kidney and found that the half kidney remaining intact sufficed to maintain the renal function and that excretion and the internal secretions remained normal. Many experiments have shown that human be­ings can exist with a single kidney, provided the organ is intact, and it has been observed that when one kidney is removed the remaining kid­ney enlarges considerably in size and its activity becomes very greatly increased. In young ani­mals there is an actual increase in the number of secreting cells and of their tubes, while in adults there is merely an increase in the size of these secreting structure...

Uric Acid Q. Is uric acid harmful? How may an excess of uric acid be gotten rid of? A. Uric acid is unquestionably a tissue poison. It may not have the connection with rheumatism which was formerly attributed to it by Haig and others, but uric acid is certainly a tissue poison. It not only produces gout, but is unquestionably the cause of high blood pres­sure, of disease of the kidneys and of various forms of nervous disease. Uric acid is pro­duced in the body in small quantities as a result of the activity of the tissues, especially of the glandular organs. The amount of uric acid pro­duced in the body and excreted through the kid­neys, according to Magnus-Levy, when none is taken in the food, is about four to nine grains. On an ordinary mixed diet the quantity is more than doubled and when flesh foods are freely used th e amount may increase to five or six times the normal amount. Beefsteak contains fourteen grains of uric acid to the pound which is double the amount with wh...

Kidney Work Q. How is the work of the kidneys done and can it be measured? A. The work of the kidneys is done by small secreting or excreting units consisting of a minute cell or bladder-like expansion with a long micro­scopic tube connected with it. Each of these bladders contains a minutely coiled blood vessel from which it extracts the waste products which form the urine. There are three million of these urine makers, each with a tube an inch long. The combined length of these tubes in a single kidney is more than twenty-three miles. In a life time of 60 years each little urine factory makes about one-third of an ounce of urine or 350 drops, that is, one drop every two months. In old age the urine factories diminish in effi­ ciency and some are destroyed. When more than two-thirds are lost, poisons accumulate in the blood and life is extinguished. By means of several delicate tests recently de­ vised it is now possible to determine very accurately the degree to which t...