Mollities ossium : (malakosteon, osteo-malacia, osteo-sarcosis, Knochen-Erweichung, rachitismus adultorum, rickets, or softening of the bones in the adult) / by Joseph Jones.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mollities ossium : (malakosteon, osteo-malacia, osteo-sarcosis, Knochen-Erweichung, rachitismus adultorum, rickets, or softening of the bones in the adult) / by Joseph Jones. 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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    5 L change, as manifested in the afflux of blood to the parts affected, and the abundant cell growth. Mr. Dalrymple has found, by mi- croscopical observation, that the bone corpuscles are considerably enlarged. Enlargements of the Ilaverseian canals and of the lacunae is observed; the cancelli are loaded with large oil drops, often tinted red, and, combined with thin, numerous cells, varying in size from the T2'oTr to 5 of an inch in diameter, containing a rounded nucleus, also varying much in size, and occasionally showing various stages of division and of endogenous development. And whilst there is a diminution of the earthy constituents, there is at the same time some important change in the animal basis of the bone; it no longer yields healthy gelatin, and is saturated with oil, which, to a great extent, is not contained in cells, but lies as a free fluid in the cancelli and medullary canal, and readily drains out, when the bone is placed in an inclined position. The color of the oil is also peculiar, presenting bright yellow, pink, and deep crimson hues. These changes are probably owing, as Bennett has said, to an exudation from the bloodvessels, mingled with more or less extravasation of the colored corpuscles, in which new cells are developed, combined with fatty transformation of the albuminous and fibrinous materials. Virchow has traced fatty degeneration in inflamed bone as a part of the process of softening which precedes its expansion or absorption. Very often small fatty molecules appear in the bone- coipuscles; and Virchow has traced their enlargement, and the gradual softening, disintegration and final liquefaction and separa- tion of the proper bone-substance immediately surrounding and including each corpuscle. Analogous changes have been traced by Goodsir and Redfin in cartilage; and Virchow has pointed out their relation to fatty degeneration as a part of the inflammatory process. And these changes in inflamed bone are of special interest, inasmuch as they are the results of the same process as that by which normally the medullary spaces and areolrn of growing bone are formed, and by which mollities ossium is supposed to be pro- duced. On the other hand, the softening of the bone in rachitis should be regarded as arrested development of bone, with an increased growth of cartilage-cells. In this disease the whole bone is soft, easily cut with a knife, and preternaturally flexible; cancellous texture of a brown or reddish hue predominates, and is at first filled with a serous liquid, which may be squeezed out, as if from