Normal and Abnormal Development of the Kidney

Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1972. Flrst edition, first printing.
LANDMARK MONOGRAPH ON HUMAN KIDNEY DEVELOPMENT BASED ON METICULOUS FETAL MICRODISSECTIONS.
10 1/4 inches tall hardcover, brown cloth binding, gilt title to cover and spine, i-xi, 305 pp, 284 figures. Near fine in custom archival mylar cover. FROM THE PREFACE: "The normal and abnormal development of the kidney have been subjects of widespread interest for the past century, both to anatomists and pathologists who have had occasion to see kidneys in the laboratory and to clinicians who have had to care for patients in whom symptoms were produced by renal disturbances. Structural abnormalities of this organ are common, but the majority of those of a congenital nature that produce symptoms are associated with cyst formation, and it is the cause of cysts and the manner in which they are formed that especially have been the subjects of a great many papers. ... The formation of cysts is an active process, and relatively few stages can be seen under the microscope. ... It soon became evident, however, that the great magnifications made possible by the electron microscope were of less value than anticipated because of the extremely small areas that could be studied. ... It was evident that before cyst formation could be adequately explained, the way in which the kidney develops normally must be established if at all possible. ... Consequently, our first study was of normal development and consisted of a correlation of microscopic sections with microdissections of kidneys from embryos and fetuses at all stages of prenatal development. ... By dissection of complete units, it was possible to see whether ureteral-bud branching had occurred in a normal manner and whether nephrons had been normally induced, had attached normally to the terminal branches, and had normally matured. ... It was concluded that the integrity of the ampullae of the ureteral bud was of primary importance, not only in governing ureteral-bud division, but also in determining initiation and differentiation of nephrons.
REVIEW by Feehally, Landmark Papers in Nephrology (Oxford, 2013): # 4.3 "From the 1930s, Edith Potter worked as a perinatal pathologist in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital where she undertook microdissection and histology studies on human fetuses. She showed how the mechanisms of kidney development and maldevelopment can begin to be deduced from such descriptive data. Potter for the first time clearly distinguished four varieties of cystic kidney. Her name has been given to 'Potter syndrome', more properly termed 'Potter sequence', where external deformations occur in fetuses, which, because they have severe bilateral kidney malformations, fail to generate urine, which normally constitutes amniotic fluid in the second half of gestation." (Inventory #: 1777)