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Bright's disease

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Bright's disease
Diseased kidney from Richard Bright's Reports of Medical Cases Longman, London (1827–1831). Wellcome Library, London
SpecialtyNephrology Edit this on Wikidata
Figures of the diseased brain from Richard Bright's Reports of Medical Cases Longman, London (1827–1831). Wellcome Library, London

Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis.[1] It was characterized by edema, the presence of albumin in the urine and was frequently accompanied by high blood pressure (hypertension).

Signs and symptoms

The symptoms and signs of Bright's disease were first described in 1827 by the English physician Richard Bright, after whom the disease was named. In his Reports of Medical Cases,[2] he described 25 cases of dropsy (edema) which he attributed to kidney disease. Symptoms and sign included: inflammation of serous membranes, hemorrhages, apoplexy, convulsions, blindness and coma.[3][4] Many of these cases were found to have albumin in their urine (detected by the spoon and candle-heat coagulation), and showed striking morbid changes of the kidneys at autopsy.[5] The triad of dropsy, albumin in the urine and kidney disease came to be regarded as characteristic of Bright's disease.[3] Subsequent work by Bright and others indicated an association with cardiac hypertrophy, which was attributed by Bright to stimulation of the heart.[4] Subsequent work by Mahomed showed that a rise in blood pressure could precede the appearance of albumin in the urine, and the rise in blood pressure and increased resistance to flow was believed to explain the cardiac hypertrophy.[4]

It is now known that Bright's disease is due to a wide range of diverse kidney diseases;[1][5][6] thus, the term Bright's disease is retained strictly for historical application.[7]

Treatment

Bright's disease was historically 'treated' with warm baths, abstinence from alcohol, cheese and red meat, blood-letting, squill, digitalis, mercuric compounds, opium, diuretics, and laxatives.[2][8] Most of these treatments are in fact harmful to the patient.[citation needed] The disease was diagnosed frequently in diabetic patients.[4] Arnold Ehret was diagnosed with Bright's disease and pronounced incurable by 24 of Europe's most respected doctors. He finally designed the The Mucusless Diet Healing System and cured himself. William Howard Hay, MD suffered from the illness and it is claimed cured himself using the Hay diet.[9]

Bright's disease was a plot element in one of the early Dr. Kildare films (1945, Between Two Women). Sally (Marie Blake), the hospital switchboard operator, falls ill to a mysterious ailment and, fearing it is cancer, avoids treatment until Dr. Randall "Red" Adams (Van Johnson) correctly diagnoses it and operates on her kidney.[10]

In chapter 11 of Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel Red Harvest, a minor character, Myrtle Jennison, is "in the hospital ... dying of Bright's disease or something."

Notable cases

References

  1. ^ a b Cameron, J. S. (1972-10-14). "Bright's Disease Today: The Pathogenesis and Treatment of Glomerulonephritis—I". British Medical Journal. 4 (5832): 87–90. ISSN 0007-1447. PMC 1786202. PMID 4562073.
  2. ^ a b Bright, R (1827–1831). Reports of Medical Cases, Selected with a View of Illustrating the Symptoms and Cure of Diseases by a Reference to Morbid Anatomy, vol. I. London: Longmans. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b Millard, Henry B. (1884-01-01). A treatise on Bright's disease of the kidneys; its pathology, diagnosis, and treatment . New York, W. Wood & Company.
  4. ^ a b c d "A treatise on Bright's disease and diabetes : with especial reference to pathology and therapeutics". archive.org. Retrieved 2016-07-23.
  5. ^ a b Peitzman, Steven J. (1989-01-01). "From Dropsy to Bright's Disease to End-Stage Renal Disease". The Milbank Quarterly. 67: 16–32. doi:10.2307/3350183. JSTOR 3350183.
  6. ^ Wolf G (2002). "Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (1819-1885) and Bright's disease". American journal of nephrology. 22 (5–6): 596–602. doi:10.1159/000065291. PMID 12381966.
  7. ^ Peitzman SJ (1989). "From dropsy to Bright's disease to end-stage renal disease". The Milbank quarterly. 67 Suppl 1: 16–32. PMID 2682170.
  8. ^ Saundby, Robert (2013-10-22). Lectures on Bright's Disease. Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 9781483195360.
  9. ^ Gilman, Goldwin Smith Professor of Human Studies Sander L.; Gilman, Sander L. (2008-01-23). Diets and Dieting: A Cultural Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 9781135870683.
  10. ^ Kalisch, PA; Kalisch, BJ (1985). "When Americans called for Dr. Kildare: images of physicians and nurses in the Dr. Kildare and Dr. Gillespie movies, 1937–1947" (PDF). Medical Heritage. 1 (1): 348–363. PMID 11616027. Retrieved 30 April 2013.
  11. ^ Profiles of Great African Americans by Charles R. Branham, Ph.D., Senior Historian, DuSable Museum of African American History, p. 10.
  12. ^ Martin, George. The Damrosch Dynasty, Houghton Mifflin Company 1983, p. 125.
  13. ^ Barter, Judith (1998). Mary Cassatt: Modern woman (1. ed.). New York, New York: Abrams, Inc. p. 56. ISBN 0-8109-4089-2.
  14. ^ The Grand Designer, Rosemary Hannah, Birlinn Ltd., 2012.
  15. ^ Nature Doctors Pioneers in Naturopathic Medicine, Kirchfeld and Boyle, NCNM Press, 2005, p. 215.
  16. ^ "Rhode Island's Governor William Gregory Passed Away at His Home in North Kingstown". Newport, Rhode Island. Newport Mercury. 21 December 1901. p. 1. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  17. ^ Sullivan III, W. T. (1984). The early years of radio astronomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-521-25485-X.
  18. ^ Weird NJ Magazine, Heather Wendt Kemp.
  19. ^ Nicholas Sagovsky, ‘Tyrrell, George (1861–1909)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
  20. ^ Farrell, Nick. King Over The Water, Kerubim Press, 2012, p. 151
  21. ^ Rosen, Charley (2012). The Emerald Diamond. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 137–139. ISBN 978-0-06-208988-5.
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