On the causes, nature, and treatment of palsy and apoplexy : of the forms, seats, complications and morbid relations of paralytic and apoplectic diseases / by James Copland.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the causes, nature, and treatment of palsy and apoplexy : of the forms, seats, complications and morbid relations of paralytic and apoplectic diseases / by James Copland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    what he has observed, to conclude, that the changes formerly termed atheromatous, although more or less resembling fat, are not actually this substance, though closely allied to it, or containing it in various propor- tions, in connection with more or less of other animal matters. 4 When treating of the diseases of the arteries in his Dictionary, the Author imputed these changes to altered nutrition, owing to failure of the organic nervous influ- ence endowing the cerebral vessels, and this idea he has supported in the present treatise, believing the change in the vessels to be consecutive of impairment of the functional energy of these nerves, and the effusion, softening, disorganization, &c. to be the ultimate results of this'procession of changes — first in these nerves, next in the vessels, and ultimately in the cerebral struc- ture and membranes. He has stated these changes, in general terms, to be atheromatous or fatty: but they are really of a composite nature, and consist of various proportions of olein, margarin, cholesterin and albu- minous matter deposited in or between the coats of the arteries; the more strictly fatty deposit assuming the form sometimes of oil-globules, or fat-globules, or of fat granules. It is not improbable that these changes are owing not merely to impaired organic nervous power, either generally or locally, but also to the state of the blood — to a superabundance, consequent upon imper- fect assimilation, of these substances in the blood, and