The Bradshaw lecture on prognosis in relation to treatment of tuberculosis of the genito-urinary organs : Delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England, December 1907.

  • Godlee, Rickman John, Sir, 1849-1925.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Bradshaw lecture on prognosis in relation to treatment of tuberculosis of the genito-urinary organs : Delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England, December 1907. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    thinks it one of the most successful of opera- tions. He considers that the presence of numerous other tuberculous foci or advanced cachexia forms no absolute contraindication to nephrectomy. So long as it could be estab- lished, or appear to be established, first, that the other kidney was intact and functionating, and, secondly, that the principal trouble and immediate danger depended on the renal con- dition, nephrectomy was, in his opmion, ni- dicated. Of thirty-four nephrectomies, ten at the time of publication had died, eight of these deaths having occurred during the first year, one having survived seven years, and another eleven years. Of the remaining twenty-four, no less than fourteen had survived the opera- tion more than three years, and three of these more than nine years. Naturally the mortality was highest—36 per cent.—amongst the cases in which complications were known to exist. Of the twelve cases which were supposed to be uncomplicated, not one died of the im- mediate effects of the operation, and only one had subsequently died of tuberculosis (of the lungs, bladder, and kidney), and that after six years. These results are striking and give matter for serious thought. It is open to the advo- cates of nephrectomy to say that such cases