Lectures on the principles and practice of physics : delivered by D. Francis Condie.

  • Watson, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1882.
Date:
1858
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the principles and practice of physics : delivered by D. Francis Condie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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    FIG. 4. Atrophy of cellular struc- ture of the thigh-bone. pearance, have had their specific gravity so greatly reduced by internal atrophy, that they would float, like a cork, upon water. It is a curious fact — which I mentioned in other terms before — that an atrophied part is sometimes plentifully en- compassed by fat. But this is by no means a necessary accompaniment. Why it happens in one case, and not in another — whether the adipous hypertrophy is ever the cause of the atrophy associated with it, or the atrophy the cause of the hypertrophy: — these are questions which, in the present state of the science of medicine, do not admit of any positive solution. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the changes of bulk which we have been considering, imply often, though not always, changes of form also. You may have one or two of the chambers of the heart greatly enlarged, while the others remain of their natural size. Of course this altered propor- tion modifies the shape of the organ. Signal changes of form are produced also by inflammation, by pressure, and in various other ways. But, after all, modi- fications of figure are rather to be considered as accidents of disease than among its important elements; and I pass on to other alterations. Various parts of the body are liable to be changed in con- sistence. They may become harder and firmer than before: or they may become softer. To the state of increased or un- natural hardness the term induration has been applied; the same word is used also to express the process of hardening. To the state of diminished consistence we give the name of softening. The French pathologists, who first noticed this condition as an element of disease, call it ramollissement. You are already aware — those of you who have attended the lectures of the pro- fessors of midwifery and of anatomy — that a slow process of natural and healthy induration is going on throughout the body from the earliest period of uterine life to extreme old age. There are several ways in which imnatural induration may take place. Induration of an organ may happen, without any other alteration of its proper tissue, in consequence of inordinate fulness of its blood-vessels. This is apt to occur in the lungs, or liver, whenever the free exit of blood from these organs is in any way impeded. They become stretched, tense, resisting, hard. In like manner induration of the hollow organs, or of cellular parts, may arise (without any change of their texture) from an undue accumulation of fluids within them :—of bile, for example, in the gall-bladder; of urine, in its receptacle; of gases in the stomach and intestines; of serosity in the cellular tissue. In either of these kinds of induration the unnatural hardness may be temporary only, or it may be the permanent accompaniment of other disease. It is necessary that you should be aware of its occurrence, and of its nature. I say, of its nature, because this is not always understood. In the induration arising from the last cir- cumstance I mentioned, viz., from infiltration of the cellular tissue with the serous or albuminous parts of the blood — from oedema, in short — the hardness has some- times been erroneously ascribed to some other morbid condition. Dr. Carswell has shown that in the curious disease of new-born children who are said to be skin-bound, the hardness of the surface is the consequence of simple oedema of the subcutaneous cellular tissue. The same phenomenon is remarkable in oedema of the tongue, believe the induration belonging to oedema will be found to be the greater, in propor- tion as the effusion is large and recent, and has taken place rapidly. Again, induration may accompany, and be a consequence of, simple hypertrophy. Of this I have already shown you examples: especially in the eburnation, (as i been called) of hypertrophied bone. Induration of an organ may also result from the expression of its fluid, and compression of its solid parts. We see this extremely well in the lung, when il been thrust and flattened against the vertebral column by fluid effused into the pie 4