The patient should be clothed in flannel, and if possible confined to bed; the room should be of a comfortable and equable temperature, and the patient should be most sedulously guarded against exposure to cold currents of air. Throughout the course of the disease, the diet should be unirritating and digestible; any excess in this respect may be attended with bad consequences. When convalescence is established, the preparations of iron will be found exceedingly useful, improving the condition of the blood and the general strength. - Chronic AIbuminuria. The approach of chronic albuminuria, when not the sequel of an acute attack, is masked and insidious, rarely awaking attention until fatal progress has been made; indeed, persons not suspecting themselves to be ill have in repeated instances died suddenly of what has been supposed to be an apoplectic attack, and post-mortem examination has shown the kidneys and not the brain to be the seat of mischief. In general, however, the symptoms are sufficiently well marked to attract the attention of the observing physician.

The patient loses flesh and strength; the appetite fails, or, if good, flatulence and other dyspeptic symptoms are present; after a time the color is lost, and the patient has a pallid, sallow, or waxy look; the skin becomes dry; in the morning, on rising, swelling beneath the eyes is noticed, and at night the ankles are cedematous. There is some pain in the back, but it is not commonly so great as to attract attention. If the patient be questioned, it will be found that there is some irritability of the bladder; he has, contrary to his wont, to rise at night to pass urine, although there is no evidence of disease of the bladder itself. The urine is sometimes passed in large quantities, and occasionally the amount is much below the average; it is pale and of low specific gravity, varying commonly from 1.004 to 1.012. Tested by heat and nitric acid for the presence of albumen, this substance is found to vary greatly in amount in different cases, occasionally being present in large quantity, while sometimes only a trace of its existence is discovered; sometimes it disappears altogether, and will only be discovered after repeated examinations. In the course of the disease dropsy of the abdomen is apt to occur, and this often becomes so great as to be the principal source of suffering.

Anasarca is also present, and the whole cellular tissue is infiltrated with serum. As in the acute form of the disease, there may be effusion, with or without inflammation, into the cavities of the pericardium and pleura, as well as into that of the peritoneum. A tendency to prolonged somnolence is often observed, and this may lapse into coma, or may alternate with epileptic convulsions. Bronchitis is apt to occur and to prove severe and intractable; pneumonia, too, sometimes comes on insidiously, and may run on rapidly to a fatal issue; and rheumatism, particularly a chronic and unmanageable form of the disease, is not infrequent. It is to the deteriorated condition of the blood that the number, variety, and fatality of the complications of the disease of the kidneys are to be attributed. The principal alteration in that fluid would seem to be chiefly the diminished amount of the blood globules, the hematine, according to Dr. Christison, sometimes reaching only one third of its natural quantity, and the presence of the retained urea. - The duration of the disease varies very greatly in different cases.

Among the laboring classes whose avocations lead them to exposure to the inclemencies of the weather, and in whom sickness brings too often privation of comforts and mental depression, death commonly occurs after no very protracted period; but among those whose position enables them to avoid fatigue and exposure,. and who are more on their guard against the first invasion of disease, chronic albuminuria often lasts for years, leaving its victims a very fair measure of the eniovments and labors of life; their situation, however, is always precarious, and serious or fatal disease may at any moment be brought on by apparently trivial circumstances. - Intemperance in eating and drinking, but especially in the use of fermented and distilled liquors, is the great cause of chronic albuminuria, in cases where it is not consequent upon the acute disease. One form of the disease is so commonly associated with the gouty diathesis, that it has been named by Dr. Todd the gouty kidney; but the same form of disease is often found in those who have never known gout. It occurs most frequently in those of strumous haunts, and, at least in hospital cases, it is no uncommon attendant upon consumption.

Exposure to cold and wet, fatigue, want, and mental anxiety, may all be put down as occasional causes; yet many cases occur in which we are unable to trace the origin of the complaint. - In the so-called granular degeneration of the kidney, the organs in advanced stages of the disease are very much contracted, so as not to be more than one third or one fourth of their natural size. They have a granular appearance; the capsule is denser and whiter than natural, and is peeled off with difficulty. On cutting open the kidney, the wasting is found to have taken place mainly at the expense of the cortical substance, which is contracted and atrophied, and presents the same granular appearance which is observed upon the surface. In the waxy kidney the organ is enlarged sometimes to twice its natural size. It is of a pale buff color, and presents when cut no trace of granulations; on examination under the microscope the tissue of the organ is found to be filled with an unorganized fibrinous exudation, and the tubes contain a similar deposit, in the form of waxy casts identical with those which microscopic examination detects in the urine.

The fatty kidney is enlarged, the surface of the organ is smooth and pale, or more commonly mottled by red vascular patches, and its texture feels softer than natural. On microscopic examination the convoluted tubes are found filled with oil globules. - In chronic albuminuria, where neither dropsy nor other formidable complication demands attention, the treatment consists rather in hygienic measures, in a careful direction of the patient's clothing, diet, and exercise, than in active medication. Flannel should always be worn next the skin, and exposure to wet and cold carefully shunned; all inordinate exercise, whether of mind or body, and all excess of every kind, should be forbidden; the diet should be nutritious, but moderation and regularity must be insisted on; all fermented liquors should be avoided, though, where long habit has rendered their use necessary, the patient may be left to choose the article which best agrees with him.