Treatment.  Diet.—­In mild cases fluids should be taken freely, particularly the alkaline mineral water to which citrate of potash can be added.  Tonics should be given when called for, and milk diet and buttermilk may be taken freely.  When a tumor has formed, and even before, it is perceptible, if the symptoms are serious and severe, an operation may be necessary.

Kidney stone. (Renal Calculus.  Nephro-Leithiasis).—­Forming of a stone or gravel in the kidney or its pelvis may occur in intra uterine, (before the child is born), in the womb, or at any age.  A family tendency, sedentary life, excesses in eating and drinking and very acid urine predispose.  They vary in size from that of fine sand to that of a bean.

Symptoms.—­Patients may pass gravel for years without having an attack of renal (kidney) colic, and a stone may never lodge in the ureter.  A person may pass an enormous number of calculi.  Dr. Osler speaks of having had a patient who had passed several hundred kidney stones (calculi) with repeated attacks of kidney colic.  His collection filled an ounce bottle.  A patient may pass a single stone and may never be troubled again.  A stone remaining in the kidney may cause dull aching pain in the affected kidney, or the pain may be referred to the other side and sometimes there may be blood or pus in the urine, with chill and fever due to pyelitis.  Kidney (renal) colic comes on when a stone enters the ureter, if it is at all large.  At attack may set in abruptly, without any apparent reason, or it may follow a strain in lifting.  The pain may be agonizing in character, which starts in the flank of the affected side, passes down along the course of the ureter and is felt in the testicle and along the inner side of the thighs.  The testicle is drawn back.  The pain may also go through the abdomen and chest, and be very severe in the back.  In severe attacks nausea and vomiting are present and the patient is collapsed; sweating breaks out in his face and the pulse is feeble and weak.  The pain lasts from an hour to several days, until the stone reaches the bladder, partial suppression of the urine during the attack occurs, but a large quantity of urine is usually passed after it and a feeling of soreness may, be present for several days.  The stone may again cause pain in passing through the urethra, or it may remain in the bladder as a nucleus for a bladder calculus (stone).  Dr. Osler gives Montaigne’s description as follows; “Thou art seen to sweat with pain, to look pale and red, to tremble, to vomit well nigh to blood, to suffer strange contortions and convulsions, by starts to let tears drop from thine eyes, to urine thick, black and frightful water, or to have it suppressed by some sharp and craggy stone that cruelly pricks and tears thee.”

[162 Mothers’ remedies]