Book 2
3
THE kidneys are of a glandular nature, but redder in colour, like the liver, rather than like the mammæ and testicles; for they, too, are glands, but of a whiter colour. In shape they resemble the testicles, but are broader, and, at the same time, curved. Their cavities are small and like sieves, for the percolation of the urine; and these have attached to each of them nervous canals, like reeds, which are inserted into the shoulders of the bladder on each side; and the passage of the urine from each of the kidneys to the bladder is equal.
3
About it, the kidneys, and those passages, many and complicated diseases are formed, partly acute, proving fatal by hemorrhage, fevers, and inflammation, as has been described by me; but partly chronic, others wearing out the patient by wasting, and although not of a fatal character, incurable, and persisting until death. Wherefore, the chronic are—abscesses, ulcers, the formation of stones, and hemorrhoids. The ulcerations from abscess in man are all very protracted, and difficult to cure.
