KIDNEY
Surgical Treatment of Nephritis.
—According to Kümmell,1 Harrison in 1896 undertook the first operative attack on nephritis. Israel reported fourteen cases in 1899 in which nephrectomy had been performed for bleeding and renal pain. In 1901, Edebohls advocated the operation of decapsulation of both kidneys as a therapeutic measure in chronic nephritis. Following this work, numerous articles have appeared from time to time reviewing experimental work on animals and clinical results in human beings. Kümmell feels that the clinical results argue in favor of the procedure in spite of the fact that the experimental work is somewhat controversial. The good effect of decapsulation is probably due to the removal of the sympathetic nerve fibers which are severed from the kidney by removal of the capsule. The establishment of collateral circulation and the formation of a new capsule, which takes place rather readily, can only in part account for