GENERAL EXAMINATION OF PATIENTS The methods of examining patients who are believed to be suffering from lesions of the urinary tract are so diverse that the insertion of a chapter devoted to the discussion of these methods has seemed desirable. Undoubtedly much that appears here is already so well known as hardly to require mention. It is hoped, nevertheless, that those to whom the treatment of urinary disease is comparatively new work will find its perusal helpful. In our experience, errors in diagnosis are most often due to neglect in following a systematic method of examination. The art of questioning the patients and of carefully interpreting the answers plays so important a part in the formation of a correct diagnosis in urinary diseases that it is well to cultivate a definite method in this division of diagnostic work. A good plan to follow, after eliciting the necessary information regarding the family and personal history, is to question the patient concerning the symptoms complained of in the upper extremities, and so to continue on down the body to the soles of the feet. Although in a few cases, as for instance, that of a young man with a primary acute urethritis, it would be an unnecessary waste of time to go into the usual questions concerning the family history, diseases of childhood, and habits of life, still, in the majority of cases, a correct diagnosis can be made only after a thorough examination-both objective and subjective. General questions should bear upon the family history. The cause of death of the various members of the patient's family should be ascertained, and the important subject of hereditary tendencies should receive full consideration. In this way a gouty diathesis, a tendency toward nerve derangements and toward early |