Introduction 

The medical term for the studies of the kidney and diseases is called nephrology. It concerns with the diagnosis and treatment of kidney diseases.

The mammalian kidney develops from intermediate mesoderm and the development of kidney is called nephrogenesis. It consists of 3 phases which are pronephros, mesonephros and metanephros.

The kidney is such an essential organ in maintaining homeostasis. If the kidneys fail to develop in fetus, it is not compatible with life. Even if the infants are born alive, they do not live beyond 4 hours. It suggests that it is crucial for living and it never stops working until the end of your life which behaves like other organs, e.g. heart, lungs and liver. 

Moreover, kidneys are also present in other organisms, e.g. lamb, pigs, chicken, and they have similar structures and functions. This suggests that kidneys were present in the common ancestors which again shows how important it is to the organism.

Fig. 1 Lamb kidneys

Banner image courtesy of Flickr under creative commons license: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kcj5000/380677389/

Figure 1: Image courtesy of  

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Lammnieren.jpg 

This image is under the creative commons license.