STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL CHANGES IN URINARY TRACT FOLLOWIN FOCAL CORD LESIONS

When the spinal cord has been injured or its function gravely impaired by pressure as from a tumor, the first consideration of the medical attendant beyond actual support of life and the protection from further immediate injury and disease should be directed to the function of the bladder. An early if not an immediate problem is concerned with the emptying of the victim's bladder, and since catheterization is a simple procedure it is chosen as an easy solution. I believe that the greatest remote danger, and, indeed, one not always remote, lies in this practice, for renal infection has probably always followed and those patients who might recover from the cord injury or disease either succumb or are seriously impaired in health by renal damage. It is likely that those instances which seem to prove a relative safety in this catheter method of early treatment, if carefully investigated at late