The Urinary Organs Of The Foetus do not frequently become diseased, but their affections occasionally attain a very considerable development. The kidneys are subject to hyperaemia and apoplexy; the passages have been found excessively dilated, to an extent varying with the seat of contraction or obturation; and the bladder has even been ruptured from the same cause. We quote the following case, taken from a preparation which is preserved in the Viennese Museum, both because it presents analogies to the various observations of this character that have been recorded, and on account of several peculiarities which it offers: A newborn male infant with a large abdominal cavity, is provided with a bladder of the size of a child's head, collapsed and agglutinated to the abdominal parietes by a thick exudation. The membranes are traversed by varicose veins, which presented a blue color when fresh, and the urethra is narrow, though patent. The inferior portions of the ureters are dilated to the size of the small intestine of an adult, the upper portions less so, the right being of the size of a little finger, the left one larger; the pelves and calices of the kidneys, which are of the size of walnuts, are moderately dilated. The ureters are coiled up and bent, and their curvatures are bound down by a tense cellular sheath: both terminate blindly at the sides of the bladder. The right one is accompanied by an unsymmetrical umbilical artery, which proceeds from the point of origin of the renal arteries. All the other abdominal viscera are pushed upwards, and the entire intestine is very narrow, scarcely presenting a diameter of one line; the abdominal integuments are aedematous, and are superficially ulcerated, below the insertion of the umbilical cord, to an extent of three inches by nine lines or one inch. They are considerably thinned, and of an irregular thickness, presenting a cribriform perforation at one spot, and adhering to the anterior surface of the bladder. The peritoneum was invested by a plastic exudation, and contained six ounces of a yellow, opaque fluid.

The cysts of which we have spoken at page 159, also occur in the foetal kidneys, and may be so numerous that the latter appear converted into one mass of cysts.

We frequently have opportunities of observing spots in the foetal kidneys which are variously discolored, and which present a morbid induration of the tissue. They most probably result from inflammation, and are occasionally associated with traces of a similar process in the adipose sheath of the kidneys.

The suprarenal capsules have been found in a state of suppuration.