POLYCYSTIC KIDNEY

Abstract

Because of the ease of its recognition, polycystic disease of the kidney has been of medical interest at least since the sixteenth century.¹Morgagni,²about a hundred years later, observed and described the "hydatids" which he found in several cadavers he had dissected. He noted that some of these "hydatids" were single, while others occurred as pairs or in larger numbers, and that some were "of the bigness of a small apple," while others were larger. Of 1 case he stated: Wherefore, although there were two other less hydatids, in other parts of the same kidney, they had not rais'd up that membrane beyond the surface of the kidney; that is to say, they were confin'd under it, like the other more frequent cells, and had hollow'd out a kind of bed for themselves, in the substance of the kidney. And a larger hydatid had, also, hollow'd out