Search This Blog

Monday 2 November 2015

Kidney

HISTORY

The only occurrence of the world 'kidney' in Shakespeare is in Merry Wives of Windsor. At the time, the word 'kidney' often referred to someone's temperament, which is why Falstaff referred to "as man of my kidney".

A physician, Wilhelm Kolff, constructed in 1943 the first kidney dialysis machine in wartime Holland and treated his first patient with it. The device was made of aluminium, wood, and wet cellophane, in the form of a rotating drum.

The first human kidney transplant was performed by Dr. Richard Lawler in Illinois on June 17, 1950. The patient was Ruth Tucker, a 44-year-old woman with polycystic kidney disease, Although the donated kidney was rejected ten months later, the intervening time gave Tucker's remaining kidney time to recover and she lived another five years.

Dr Richard H Lawler

The first successful kidney transplants between living patients were undertaken was performed by Dr. Joseph E. Murray at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston on December 23, 1954. Murray and his assistants removed one of Robert Herrick's kidneys and grafted it into his twin brother, Richard, who was dying of kidney failure. Richard Herrick made a successful recovery and lived another eight years. For this and later work, Dr. Murray received the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1990.

The first successful kidney transplantation in the United Kingdom occurred on October 30, 1960, when Michael Woodruff performed one between identical twins at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Long Island doctor Richard Batista sued his wife to get back the kidney he donated to her in 2001, after she cheated on him.

Debbie Stevens, a Long Island mom, donated a kidney to save the life of her boss in 2011. However, her boss then turned around after she got what she wanted and helped fire Debbie when she took too long to recover after the surgery.

Canadian Anya Pogharian invented in 2015 at age 17 a portable dialysis machine costing $500 to build; (dialysis machines typically cost about $30,000). Her machine filters 4 liters of blood in 25 minutes.

In 2013, 16,898 kidney transplant operations were performed in the USA.

One in five kidneys donated in the US are thrown away because a suitable recipient can’t be found.

THE HUMAN KIDNEY

There are 18 mentions of kidneys in the King James Bible, 14 of which are in Leviticus. None are for the singular 'kidney'.

Each of our two kidneys is about 4.5 inches long and weighs about five ounces.

By Madhero88 - Own work References here, CC BY 3.0, $3
                                                     

The average person's kidneys account for only about half of a percent of their total body weight.

The main functions of the kidneys are blood purification and waste elimination

Every day, our kidneys filter about 50 gallons of blood through their 140 miles of tubes.

Blood passes through the human kidneys at a rate of 1.1 liters per minute. The human body has about 5 liters of blood. This means your entire blood gets filtered by your kidneys about once every five minutes.

Our kidneys receive between 20 and 25 per cent of the blood pumped by the heart.

Kidneys produce 1.5 litres of urine a day to rid the body of toxins and waste matter.

In a lifetime, the kidneys clean more than one million gallons of water, enough to fill a small lake.


In 2003, doctors in Latvia reported a case of a man with four kidneys.

Dr. Fariborz Bagheri of Dubai Hospital, removed in 2017 a 4.25 kg (9 lb 5.91 oz) non-functional kidney from Ahmed Saeed Mohammed Omar who was suffering from Polycystic Kidney Disease. It was confirmed by The Guinness Book of Records to be the largest ever human kidney.

Back in 2011, a 17-year-old Chinese teenager Wang Shangkun sold one of his kidneys on the black market for the equivalent of about $4,500 AUD, so he could buy an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4.  Shangkun is now attached to a dialysis machine. He suffered organ failure, and is likely to be bedridden for life after suffering renal deficiency. He could get a transplant for $336,000 AUD on the black market - more than 80 times what he received for his kidney.

After  American investor and utilitarian Zell Kravinsky learned that many African-Americans have difficulty obtaining kidneys from family members, he sought out a hospital in Philadelphia that would allow him to donate one of his kidneys to a lower-income African American man. He calculated the chances of dying from the procedure at 1 in 4,000, and said "to withhold a kidney from someone who would otherwise die means valuing one’s own life at 4,000 times that of a stranger."

Kidneys are the most transplanted organ, with over 17,000 kidney transplants happening in the U.S. every year.

When you get a kidney transplant they usually leave your original kidneys in your body and put the third one lower in your pelvic area.

KIDNEYS IN ANIMALS

In snakes, the right kidney is closer to the head than the left kidney.

The kidneys of cats are so efficient, they can survive on a diet consisting only of meat, with no additional water, and can even re-hydrate by drinking seawater.

The Spinifex Hopping Mouse has one of the most efficient kidneys of any animal and creates its own water through metabolic processes. They produce solid urine with very little water.

WORLD KIDNEY DAY 

Kidney disease is a non-communicable disease (NCD) and currently affects around 850 million people worldwide. One in ten adults has chronic kidney disease (CKD) 

World Kidney Day is observed on March 11 annually. The day raises awareness of the increasing burden of kidney diseases worldwide and to strive for kidney health for everyone, everywhere. 

 FUN KIDNEY FACTS

Nephrite, a form of jade, is named after the Greek for kidney, Nephros, as it was thought effective in treating kidney disease.

'Renal' means pertaining to the kidneys; 'reniform' means kidney-shaped.

A good healthy kidney from Israel goes for about $160,000 on the black market and a kidney from India goes for $20,000

There is a desperately poor Nepalese village called Hokshe where out of the population of 300, about 70 have sold their kidneys for money.

Iran is the only country in the world where it is legal to sell your kidneys — the government regulates the market. It is estimated that 1,400 Iranians sell one of their kidneys annually.

Kidney Island in the Falklands was given that name because of its shape.

Source Daily Express

1 comment:

  1. Professor Prem raj Pushpakaran ♡ പ്രൊഫസ്സർ പ്രേം രാജ്‌ പുഷ്പാകരന്‍ ♡ writes 2019 marks the centenary birth year of Joseph E. Murray, who did the first successful human kidney transplant on identical twins!!!

    ReplyDelete