Excretory Irritation Author:David Walsh Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the presence of such conditions.' Dr. Eadcliffe Crocker remarks : ' Iodide eruptions, especially the severer forms, are very liable to occur when there is any re... more »nal inadequacy, whether that is due to disease of the kidney itself or to a weakly acting heart. . . . Iodide of potassium is a powerful diuretic, and as long as diuresis is kept up there is often no eruption, but when the drug is stopped for a few days the diuresis stops, and the iodine, not being removed fast enough, excites an eruption.'t A simple explanation of the renal inadequacy would be found if we assume the iodine to irritate the excretory epithelium of the kidney, as it certainly does that of the skin and mucous membranes. The disturbance to the kidney would hinder its function, so that the stress of subsequent elimination of the irritating iodine would be thrown upon other excretory organs. Iodine, then, is excreted chiefly by the kidneys. It is capable of irritating other excretory organs, chiefly the skin and mucous membranes, with damage to their epithelium. Externally it acts as a severe irritant and caustic. Subdivision B.—ACCUMULATION OF NORMAL EXCRETORY PRODUCTS IN BLOOD. (That is, practically, substances usual in certain excretions, but accumulated in blood, and vicariously excreted.) Uraemia. This condition is caused by the accumulation within the system of substances that should be eliminated by Fowler's ' Dictionary of Medicine,' art. ' Medicinal Bashes.' f Crocker's ' Diseases of the Skin,' p. 304. Second edition, London. the kidneys; these may be called for convenience ' uraemic products.' These uraemic products are in reality composed of a number of poisons. That they act as irritants to various excretory outlets is shown by the accompanying vomiting and diarrhoea. Dr. Ca...« less