Bright's disease
Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis.[1] It was characterized by swelling and the presence of albumin in the urine, and was frequently accompanied by high blood pressure and heart disease.
Bright's disease
Signs and symptoms[edit]
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 signs included: inflammation of serous membranes, haemorrhages, 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 post-mortem.[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 Bright attributed to stimulation of the heart. Frederick Akbar 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 today known that Bright's disease is caused by a wide and diverse range of kidney diseases;[1][5][6] thus, the term Bright's disease is retained just for historical application.[7] The disease was diagnosed frequently in diabetic patients;[4] at least some of these cases would probably correspond to a modern diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy.
Treatment[edit]
Bright's disease was historically treated with warm baths, blood-letting, squill, digitalis, mercuric compounds, opium, diuretics, laxatives[2][8] and dietary therapy, including abstinence from alcoholic drinks, cheese and red meat. Arnold Ehret was diagnosed with Bright's disease and pronounced incurable by 24 of Europe's most respected doctors; he designed The Mucusless Diet Healing System, which apparently cured his illness. William Howard Hay, had the illness and, it is claimed, cured himself using the Hay diet.[9]
Alfred H. Terry, an important Union Major General and, later, commanding officer of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Died December 16, 1890, New Haven, Connecticut.
member and Detroit Tigers center fielder Ty Cobb was diagnosed with a list of ailments, including Bright's disease, in 1959.[10][11]
Hall of Fame
Catholic priest and author, died on 26 September 1863.
Frederick William Faber
an American businessman and founder of the department store chain R.H. Macy & Company, died on 29 March 1877 in Paris.
Rowland Hussey Macy Sr.
Sir , barrister and parliamentarian, died on 4 May 1879.
Muthu Coomaraswamy
Tabeguache Ute chief died of Bright's disease on 24 August 1880.
Ouray
victim of Jack the Ripper, was found to be in the advanced stages of Bright's disease when she died.
Catherine Eddowes
first wife of Theodore Roosevelt, died on 14 February 1884 due to kidney failure caused by Bright's disease that was worsened due to pregnancy.[13]
Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
American tennis pioneer died at the age of 34, on 3 May 1886.
Mary Ewing Outerbridge
Swedish-American mechanical engineer , most famous for designing USS Monitor, died on 8 March 1889.[17]
John Ericsson
American Olympic gold medallist weightlifter, died 15 August 1994. In 1961, he and his wife Glenda founded the Paul Anderson Youth Home in Vidalia, Georgia.
Paul Anderson
London pastor known as "The Prince of Preachers", died in 1892 at the age of 57 of Bright's disease.[18]
Charles H. Spurgeon
Famed Luke Short was diagnosed with Bright's disease in early 1893, but died on 8 September of that year due to edema.
gunfighter
Union general , who had played an important role in the American Civil War, died on 11 January 1896.
Francis C. Barlow
Socialite , daughter of Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, died 31 July 1899, at age 58.
Katherine Jane Chase
the Victorian aristocrat and industrial magnate whose vast expenditure on buildings makes him the pre-eminent architectural patron of the 19th century. Diagnosed with Bright's disease and died after multiple strokes on 9 October 1900.
John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute
American bare-knuckle heavyweight champion died on 14 December 1900 in Green Island, New York. Bright's was not an entirely uncommon disease among early boxers who took frequent pounding to the abdomen in their careers.[22]
Paddy Ryan
32nd Speaker of the US House of Representatives (18 October 1839 – 7 December 1902), American politician from the state of Maine, died in Washington, D.C.[23]
Thomas Brackett Reed
Japanese scholar, died on 2 September 1913.
Okakura Kakuzo
an American businessman and founder of the department store chain Sears, Roebuck and Company, died on 28 September 1914 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.[33]
Richard Warren Sears
Woodsman Louis "" Seymour died on 28 February 1915.
French Louie
comic star of the early motion picture era, died on 26 April 1915.
John Bunny
Australian cricketer died at age 37, in June 1915.
Victor Trumper
Albert Carl "Al" Ringling (1852–1916), eldest of the , died at the age of 63 in Wisconsin.[34]
Ringling brothers
architect based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, died in 1922.
Charles Sumner Sedgwick
Baseball Hall of Famer died on 22 October 1927.
Ross Youngs
Spanish composer began suffering from Bright's disease in 1900, and died on 18 May 1909.
Isaac Albéniz
"the birdman of Alcatraz" was diagnosed with Bright's disease in Leavenworth prison shortly after he began his original sentence.
Robert Stroud
African American educator, school administrator, businessperson, and minister.[36]
James McHenry Jones
American light heavyweight and heavyweight boxer, who once fought Jack Dempsey for the World Heavyweight Boxing title, died from Bright's disease on 1 January 1924 (aged 29).
Billy Miske
played in the 1903 World Series with the Pittsburgh Pirates and was the first player in World Series history to hit a home run. He died of Bright's disease 22 December 1909 at the age of 27.
Jimmy Sebring
fiancée of Irish Revolutionary Michael Collins, died of complications thought to be related to Bright's disease on 25 July 1945.
Kitty Kiernan
railroad heroine and the first woman in the United States to have a bridge named after her, the Kate Shelley High Bridge, died of Bright's disease on 21 January 1912.[37]
Kate Shelley
prominent North American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque, died of Bright's disease on 27 April 1886 (aged 47).
Henry Hobson Richardson
professional wrestler and collegiate football player, died of Bright's disease in 1931.
Wayne Munn
Irish immigrant, Copper King of Butte, Montana; discoverer of copper riches in Anaconda mine; founder of Anaconda, MT; first president of Amalgamated/Anaconda Copper Co.; died of Bright's disease 11/12/1900 in New York City.[39]
Marcus Daly
Virgilio Tojetti, an Italian-American painter the son of Domenico Tojetti. He died of Bright's disease on 27 March 1901, and his death was reported in the New York Times the next day.[41]
[40]
an Irish-American serial killer, died of Bright's disease on 28 June 1918 after spending nearly half her life in a mental asylum.
Lizzie Halliday
a famous tile-maker, archeologist, and collector from Doylestown, Pennsylvania died of Bright's disease on 9 March 1930.
Henry Chapman Mercer
a British actor, died of Bright's disease on 18 January 1954. He is remembered for The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and Passage to Marseille.
Sydney Greenstreet
a British writer, died of Bright's disease on 29 September 1935. She is remembered for South Riding, her biography of Virginia Woolf, and her journalism and feminist writings.