lts to act on the kidneys. To
affect the skin a warm stall and heavy clothing may be supplemented by
dram doses of Dover's powder. Pain may be soothed by dram doses of
bromid of potassium. Boiled flaxseed may be added to the drinking water,
also thrown into the rectum as an injection, and blankets saturated with
hot water should be persistently applied to the loins. This may be
followed by a very thin pulp of the best ground mustard made with tepid
water, rubbed in against the direction of the hair and covered with
paper and a blanket. This may be kept on for an hour, or until the skin
thickens and the hair stands erect. It may then be rubbed or sponged off
and the blanket reapplied. When the action of the bowels has been
started it may be kept up by a daily dose of 2 or 3 ounces of Glauber's
salt.

During recovery a course of bitter tonics (nux vomica 1 scruple, ground
gentian root 4 drams) should be given. The patient should also be
guarded against cold, wet, and any active exertion for some time after
all active symptoms have subsided.

CHRONIC INFLAMMATION OF THE KIDNEYS.

_Causes._--Chronic inflammation of the kidneys is more commonly
associated with albumen and casts in the urine than the acute form, find
in some instances these conditions of the urine may be the only
prominent symptoms of the disease. Though it may supervene on blow,
injuries, and exposures, it is much more commonly connected with faulty
conditions of the system--as indigestion, heart disease, lung or liver
disease, imperfect blood formation, or assimilation; in short, it is
rather the attendant on a constitutional infirmity than on a simple
local injury.

It may be associated with various forms of diseased kidneys, as
shrinkage (atrophy), increase (hypertrophy), softening, red congestion,
white enlargement, etc., so that it forms a group of diseases rather
than a disease by itself.

_Symptoms._--The symptoms may include stiffness, weakness, and increased
sensibility of the loins, and modified secretion of urine (increase or
suppression), or the flow may be natural. Usually it contains albumen,
the quantity furnishing a fair criterion of the gravity of the
affection, and microscopic casts, also most abundant in bad cases.
Dropsy, manifested in swelled legs, is a significant symptom, and if the
effusion takes place along the lower line of the body or in chest or
abdomen, the significance is increased. A scurfy, unthrifty skin,
lack-luster