Volume 1

A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds.

Date:
1866-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    229/976 (page 209)
    JPYMMIA. those persons who succumb early, local processes of disease have had hut little opportunity to develop themselves ; in those who die late the later stages of suppuration and sloughing have had ample time to become established. But this explanation does not apply to all cases neither does it apply to the differences observed between cases of embolia and cases of Pysemia. Here, as elsewhere, those subtle chemical changes (termed vital) so deeply interesting, so little under- stood, come into play. Why is it that when a cancerous growth has appeared in one part of the body, the whole system speedily becomes influenced, and diseased processes occurring elsewhere assume also the cancerous character? Why is it that when tubercular disease has manifested itself in one organ, the same form of disease ere long becomes developed in other organs ? Why is it, again, that amongst all the varieties—shades—of cancer and of tubercle, that one variety which has first shown itself in any case is the pattern upon which the subsequent deposits of the same disease are formed? It would seem that morbid processes, limited in the beginning to one spot, influence the chemistry of the blood, and that of the system generally, and thus produce in the tissues a tendency to repeat, under the influence of exciting causes, those very morbid processes out of which the tendency arose. Again, certain conditions of unhealthiness, de- pendent on a variety of causes, give a type to the morbid changes accidentally occurring in different parts of the body. Thus, according to the former rule, the occurrence of gangrene at one part tends to the production of gangrene in other parts ; the existence of suppuration in one corner of the system tends to render inflammation suppurative elsewhere ; thus, according to the latter rule, a certain condition of system (as that accompanying typhus) is apt to favour the occurrence of gangrene, another condition of the system (as that accompanying- convalescence from various febrile affections) to favour the formation of local collections of pus ; and thus, on one or other or both of these principles it doubtless depends that Pyaemia, which is mostly sequen- tial on some localized mortification or suppuration of tissue, presents m the character of its secondary processes not only those differences which distinguish it from embolia and thrombosis, but those dif- ferences (not due to relative duration of disease) which distinguish cases of Pvseinia from panli rvfcbpr