On the morbid anatomy of the cattle-plague now prevalent in Britain : in reference to its supposed identity with enteric fever / by Charles Murchison.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the morbid anatomy of the cattle-plague now prevalent in Britain : in reference to its supposed identity with enteric fever / by Charles Murchison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    contents, and the Peyer’s patch exhibits a pitted, reticular aspect, owing to the open and empty condition of the glandules. In the same patch certain of the glandules may sometimes be filled witli pus, and present the appearance of opaque round bodies about the size of mustard seeds, while others are empty. When the morbid process is still further advanced, all trace of the Peyerian glands often disappears; in rare cases their free surface is coated with lymph; but ip not one of thirty cases have I found them to be the seat of ulceration. The changes which take place in Peyer’s patches are obviously the result of the general intense inflammation of the mucous membrane. There are no submucous deposits, and none of the lesions running through definite stages to ulceration, which I am familiar with in the typhoid or enteric fever of man. It is right to mention, however, that in most of the cases which I have examined, many of the solitary glands, and sometimes certain of the component glandules of Peyer’s patches, have been greatly enlarged, filled with a soft or firm cheesy matter, and in rare instances (in the case of the solitary glands), even ulcerated on the surface. A drawing of an inflamed piece of bowel studded with these enlarged glands might readily be thought to represent the lesions of enteric fever. Careful examination, however, shews clearly that the appearances in question are of old standing, and quite unconnected with the disease of which the animals have died. They have a peculiarly hard feel, inconsistent with what we find in the enlarged solitary glands in the enteric fever of man, and when cut into they are found to consist of a thick firm cyst, out of which the contents can be scooped or squeezed as a globular mass. Both these characters distinguish them from the lesions of human enteric fever. The microscope, moreover, shows the contents to be made up of oily matter, compound granular cells and granular masses and a few scales of cholesterine, appearances which indicate a chronic rather than an acute affection. But what removes all doubt from the matter, is the fact that I have found precisely similar appear- ances (Woodcut 3)—usually, indeed, even more strongly marked, in the small intestine of every one of six successive healthy oxen, which I have examined. I remember also Professor Goodsir, of Edinburgh, describing this common condition of the intestinal glands in cattle in his lectures on Comparative Anatomy, nearly twenty years ago. The effect of the general inflammation on these enlarged glands is to render them smaller, and in rare cases to soften their contents into a substance re- sembling thick cream.