A contribution to the pathology of orbital tumors : being a study of the secondary processes in the periosteum and bones of the orbit and vicinity / by Charles Stedman Bull.

  • Bull, Charles Stedman, 1844-1912.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to the pathology of orbital tumors : being a study of the secondary processes in the periosteum and bones of the orbit and vicinity / by Charles Stedman Bull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    out enucleation of the eve, the chances of its return are much small- er if it has been found encapsulated; and, when in such a case the orbit again becomes tilled, we have to choose between assuming a nidus of disease left behind and a new secondary tumor. But the presence of pathological cellular elements presupposes either a wan- dering of cells through blood-vessels or lymphatics, or both, into the neighboring tissues or cavities, or else a new formation in the locality itself. If we accept the former view, which is preferable, we assume that these wandering pathological cells become massed together and fixed in the capillaries, act as emboli, and here increase. The origin of cell formation is not different in pathological processes in this locality from what it is elsewhere in the body, and will not be discussed here. Let it suffice to say that giant cells, or the myeloplaxes of Wagner and other modern pathologists, are mother cells, containing daughter cells, and that they occur especially in sarcoma. Warner thinks that, where these giant cells occur in bone tissue, they are probably metamorphosed osteoblasts ; and, accord- ing to Kolliker, they are osteophagi or bone-eaters, because they dissolve bone tissue. Be this as it may, they are certainly of im- portance in the sarcomatous tumors of bone, and this is especially so in the bones of the orbit. They are sometimes too few in num- ber and too inconstant in their occurrence to materially change the character of the tissue in which they occur; but in many sarcomata they give the character to the entire neoplasm by their great number. The secondary processes observed in bone and periosteum, which form the subject ot this paper, are a general infiltration, softening, and degeneration of bone tissue, and the development of exostoses and osteophytes from and in the walls of the orbit. The subject of true osteomata, or of osteo-sarcomata, does not come within the scope of the paper any more than does hyperostosis. This process of infiltration is strictly one of disintegration, in which the apparent destructive power of the giant cells seems to be paramount. The development of pathological bone tissue takes place generally from new-formed or normal connective tissue, especially from periosteum, and it probably arises but seldom from pure osseous tissue. The growth of new-formed osseous tissue is in part interstitial, and mainly intercellular, through increase of the intercellular substance. But in this pathological infiltration of the bone with sarcomatous elements there is little or no intercellular substance. As regards the osteophytes, the process is different. The modern definition of an osteophyte is an osseous neoplasm firmly attached to the sur- face of bone, but distinguished from the latter by its spongy texture