Excretion

The kidney slowly deteriorates and stops functioning. The symptoms are water retention, acidosis, anaemia and increase in blood urea level.

You have learnt how important the kidneys are for survival. Though kidney failure is not common, sometimes kidney infection, injury to kidneys or restricted blood flow to kidneys result in kidney damage and malfunctioning. In order to clean the blood of metabolic wastes and to maintain normal levels of water and mineral ions in the body fluids, an 'artificial kidney' is employed as shown in the figure below. The procedure used in artificial kidney in place of the normal one is called dialysis. A matching kidney from another person may also be transplanted.

Did You Know?

Principle of dialysis Blood is made to flow into the dialysis machine made of long cellulose tubes coiled in a tank having a dialyzing solution. Waste substances diffuse out of lood into tank. The cleansed blood is pumped back into patient.