Abstract :
The kidney of the albino rat is bean – shaped, smooth, reddish-brown color it is covered by a thin connective tissue capsule that is adherent to sub capsular connective tissue containing occasional fibroblast. The rat kidneys lay alongside the vertebral column in the abdominal cavity, and the right kidney is situated more cranially than the left one. The mean weight of the right kidney was 1.1gm while, the left kidney is 0.96 gm. The mean length, width and thickness of right kidney is 1.28 cm, 0.88 and 0.81cm respectively while those of the left one the mean length, width and thickness is 1.23cm, 0.85 and 0.79 cm respectively. The kidney consists of two regions, the outer cortex and the inner medulla. The basic unit of the rat kidney is the nephron. Each nephron can be sub divided into number of distinct parts in the cortex and medulla. The nephron forming renal corpuscle, the first part of nephron consists from glumerulus and Bowman’s capsule, the proximal convoluted tubules, loop of Henle which consists of ascending and then the descending limb of loop of Henle and distal convoluted tubules. The collecting tubules are not part of the nephron.
