On the containing-texture of the blood / by William Addison.

Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the containing-texture of the blood / by William Addison. 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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    Tendons consist of strong fibrous threads or cords, enveloped, and, as it were, bound together by vascular tissue. When a tendon lias been rup- tured, the process of repair appears, in ail its primary stages, to be similar to that observed in bone. Effusion of lymph precedes the formation of new vascular tissue: analogously as in the embryo, the cells of the germinal mem- brane precede the vascular area. But here the transformations are limited to the fibrous type, not proceeding to the ulterior form of bone: and we readily perceive in this example, that whether the primary lymph-form persist, or whether the transformations exceed the natural fibrous form,—in either case the reparation of the tendon would be unna- tural, and an abnormal or diseased condition would exist. The skin has a much more complex organisation than either a bone or tendon. It may be de- scribed as a web or frame-work of vas- cular tissue, in which are embedded, at variable depths from the surface, the particular substances of its very nume- rous perspiratory glandulae and hair- follicles. The phenomena of repair in the skin vary according to the nature and severity of the injury inflicted, or according as the before-mentioned organs embedded in it are more or less extensively and completely destroyed. The general results of scalds and burns, which exemplify phenomena of inflam- mation and repair, are well known. In the former, blood speedily accumulates, reddening the site of the injury, and phenomena of growth or nutrition are exaggerated. The cuticle is raised into a bladder filled with fibrinous serum, and lymph and lymph-particles form a new covering to the excited and distended vessels. These are succeeded by several layers of new cuticle, beneath which the vessels gradually resume their natural calibre and appearance, and the reparation is complete. In burns the injury is deeper, vascular tissue and its embedded organs being killed or destroyed. Hence a new growth of vascular tissue is required for reparation, the phenomena of which may be briefly summed up as follows:— At a certain depth from the surface vascular tissue regains its tone and pro- perties, whereupon blood flows in in- creased quantity to the irritated vessels, lymph is effused, and thus a line of de- marcation is drawn between the living and the dead textures. New blood- vessels form in the lymph, which thereby becomes new vascular tissue, endowed with properties of secretion and metamorphosis; and when, by the removal of the dead parts, this new vascular tissue comes into view, it is in the form of extremely red po.nts, termed granulations, which bleed upon the slightest touch,—a fact indicative of the corpuscular or embryoniform condition of the coats of the new vessels. The granulations metamorphose into fibrous texture termed cicatrix, upon which the cure, in as far as natural operations are concerned, is conqdeted. All these cases may be considered as examples typical of inflammation, repair, and cure : and it is to be observed that bone does not exude from bone, tendon from tendon, nor skin from skin; but that in each case a corpuscular growth, termed effusion of lymph, first appears. This, when permeated by blood-cur- rents, becomes new vascular tissue, the metamorphosis of which effects the cure, whether that cure demand an osseous or a fibrous texture. Moreover, it is also to be observed,—at first, during the formation of new vascular tissue or granulations, that the action is from the blood to the tissues,—there is deposition, or effusion, growth, secretion, and swelling : but subsequently^ during the fibrous and osseous transformations, the action is from the tissues to the blood j these latter periods being marked by diminution of swelling, absorption, consolidation, a less amount of blood circulating in the part, and disappear- ance of a great many of the new vessels. Respecting the relations subsisting between the lymph of repair and the lymph of the blood,—that is to say, be- tween the colourless granular cells and protoplasma of new vascular tissue, and the colourless granular cells and protoplasma of the blood,—the follow- ing facts, which have elsewhere been discussed, maybere be recapitulated:— Colourless cells are found in abundance in blood taken from vessels administer- ing to repair or inflammation, and a delicate web of fibrous tissue may be seen with a microscope to form in the protoplasma or liquor sanguinis The blood of the early embryo, when vas- cular tissue is in active growth, is scarcely more than lymph : the vessels of granulations are formed of lymph, and bleed upon the mere touch; and