Some further notes on the etiology of ulcerative stomatitis or cancrum oris / by Alfred Lingard.

  • Lingard, Alfred.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some further notes on the etiology of ulcerative stomatitis or cancrum oris / by Alfred Lingard. 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.

    7/8 (page 7)
    the heart immediately beneath the exocardiam. On closer examination these spots were found to be slightly elevated above the surrounding tissue. Microscopically, these petechial elevations presented a smallhaemorrhage raising tip the exo* cardium, whilst the apposed portion of the muscular bundles of the heart was surrounded by a varying number of blood- corpuscles. On very careful examination I was able to verify the presence of organisms—always micrococci or diplococci—which had gained entrance to the circulatory system from the grumoos material always found in the cavity of the month, &c., in such cases. In no instance was I able to discover the thread-like growth or bacillus noma;. Although I have not yet completed my investigation of cancrum oris in the human subject and the above-mentioned animals, the facta I have detailed justify mo in publishing them as far as they go. Wo should hardly expect an animal to live with necrotic areas of tissue in the substance of the heart; that it can do so is a new and startling fact in the history of pathology. We should have been prepared to had the necrosed portion give way, and death ensue rapidly. This is the only organism yet described that appears to be purely aud simply a tissue destroyer, invading and reproduc- ing itself in its course over healthy areas, and leaving nothing in its wake but a mere skeleton of what previously existed. The tissue thus invaded is sucked dry as it were, the organ- isms in contact with the necrotic parts in like manner under- going similar changes, their centrifugal advance depending upon fresh formation at their periphery. As in the case of a fly sucked by a spider, the fly is dead, hut its outward visible form is present, and capable of easy recognition, though the protoplasmic elements entering into its composition have been deprived of their vitality by the process. The fly is present, but at the expense of its attributes. So in the case of the tissue changes observed in animals. We are able to