Post-nasal catarrh and diseases of the nose causing deafness : being vol. 1 of the third edition of Deafness, giddiness, and noises in the head / by Edward Woakes.

  • Woakes, Edward, 1837-1912.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Post-nasal catarrh and diseases of the nose causing deafness : being vol. 1 of the third edition of Deafness, giddiness, and noises in the head / by Edward Woakes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    org-ans, a circumstance which promotes the retention of the exuded fluid, while in the case of the Schneiderian membrane, there is so little depth of tissue that the ten- dency is rather for the eff'usion to escape as a flux from the mucous surface. Now the retention of an eff'usion occurring under the circumstances we are dealing- with, has a para- mount influence on the subsequent steps of the morbid process. It involves the following fact in pathological physiology, for which we are indebted to the labours of Dr. Gaskell, who communicated it at the meeting of the British Medical Association, held in Cambridge in i8So. It is to the effect, that when an irritated tissue (the objec- tive state of irritation being the hypersemic condition of its arterioles) is bathed in an acid fluid, the presence of the latter tends to keep up the dilatation of the blood vessels; while on the other hand, if the effused fluid be alkaline, an opposite effect occurs, viz., contraction of the arterioles. It may be premature to deduce dogmatic inferences from Dr. Gaskell's researches as regards their applicabihty to inflammatory processes generally, but there appears to me to exist much indirect evidence in support of their correct- ness. It is clear, however, that such a process of vessel dilatation followed by effusion of acid fluid, such as the patient's pras-catarrhal stage implies, occurring in an en- capsuled organ like the tonsils, will afford the conditions described by Gaskell as necessitating a prolongation of the physical state of vessel dilatation. Any considerable dis- tension continued for a sufficient period entails the escape of leucocytes, or corpuscular elements of the blood, through the walls of the vessels. These cells after undergoing a