On fibroid degeneration and allied lesions of the heart, and their association with disease of the coronary arteries / by John Lindsay Steven.

  • Steven, John Lindsay, 1859-1909.
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On fibroid degeneration and allied lesions of the heart, and their association with disease of the coronary arteries / by John Lindsay Steven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of Dr. Riinadge on the Heart.' In the chapter on Carditia he refers to a condition called induration of the heart, said to be one of the results of inflammation attacking the muscular or intermuscular cellular tissue. Sometimes, he adds, the consistence of the organ is fibrous or ten- dinous ; sometimes cartilaginous. Similar brief references to the condition may be found in most other text-books on heart disease, up till the present time. Coming now to more recent times, it is found that this condition of the heart-wall has been abundantly observed and described by Eaglish physicians and pathologists, although, so far as I can find, the relationship of the change to obstructed coronary circulation has been almost entirely overlooked, and, as a general rule, it has been attributed to chronic myocarditis, probably not without truth, in a certain number of cases. In 1872 the attention of the profession in England was strongly directed to this subject by the Lumleian Lectures of Dr. Richard Quain on the Diseases of the Muscular Walls of the Heart.'' Under the name con- nective tissue hypertrophy, Dr. Quain enters into a full consideration of this affection of the myocardium. No one can read these lectures without seeing that the author was very strongly of opinion that the morbid state originated in an inflammatory action. The origin, says he, of the disease is unquestionably to be sought for in a chronic inter- stitial inflammation or hyperplasia. But he does not seem to recognise any influence on the part of the coronary arteries in bringing about flbrous transformation, although, in de- scribing fatty heart, he points out that there are no communi- cations be'iWeen the two coronary arteries; and hence in ob- struction of one no collateral circulation can be set up. The strength with which the ioflammatory theory is inculcated is further seen in the remarks on treatment: In connective tissue hypertrophy, if we could diagnose it in its early stage, remedies likely to subdue the inflammatory state in which it takes its origin might have a beneficial influence. Here and there, too, statements which seem to contradict one another are met with, as if, on the whole, the true signifi- 8 \8thma, and on Diseases of the Heart, by F. H. Rainadge, M.D. Second Bilitinn. Loudon : LoiiKtiaiis, Brown. Green, and Longmans. 1817. Page 350. » The Lawckt, vol. i. 1872, pp. 391, 426. 45it.