On artificial tuberculosis, and its relation to cellular pathology and the growth of tumours / by James F. Goodhart.

  • Sir James Goodhart, 1st Baronet
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On artificial tuberculosis, and its relation to cellular pathology and the growth of tumours / by James F. Goodhart. 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.

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    and had just left the town for a consumption hospital in London, hut to which he had gone was not known.1 Cases such as this are explained by two, I think we may venture so to call them, pathological laws. 1st, That, under certain conditions, continued irritation will pro- duce, first, cell-growth in excess, and then, if hypertrophy and nu- trition be not commensurate, what may be designated as purpose- less growth. 2dly, That rapidity of transition from birth to death is in direct ratio to the rapidity of development. Just as a watch with a broken cylinder will run out a length of chain in a few seconds, which, in its sound state, it would have taken hours to accomplish; so; I ap- prehend, it is with cells. The shorter the period of development, the shorter will be their term of life; and though passing through exactly the same stages as a healthy and well-toned cell would do, they are set to a different time, as it were, the passage between the two poles of their existence being much accelerated. In proportion to the length of time that has elapsed, and the number of genera- tions gone through, will be the divergence of the progeny from the original type, and the less the likelihood of reversion coming into play. Carrying these points with us to the region of tubercle, we may associate them with the following facts :—That in our lungs we possess a large secretory and excretory surface, the cells of which, from the very nature of their occupation, are especially prone to change or hurry in the cycle of their life; and that, under the ab- normal conditions in which we live, irritating matter is always pre- sent in the air to produce the hurried action. This being so, we might wonder that every one is not tubercular, but that it is evident that Nature has provided us with nicely-balanced powers: thus, a slightly-increased growth is met by a slightly-increased degenera- tion and absorption. Destroy, however, the balance either by a constitutional state, on the one hand, or an increase of local excite- ment on the other, and the first law holds good. What is the re- sult ? Increased epithelial formation in the first stage, growth of adenoid tissue in the second, and, should the conditions still continue, a regular invading tuberculosis is established—a disease which, if malignancy means anything, is quite as much so as the truest cancel-. Various collateral circumstances will also act somewhat in deter- mining the extent of pathological change. For instance, in the first stage, or that of catarrhal pneumonia, according as the irritation is applied to an extensive surface or the reverse, and the cells, so to speak, run true or erratically, will be the production of an acute lobar, a vesicular, or a caseous pneumonia. The second stage will 1 Other cases of the same kind are detailed in the Transactions of the Clini- cal Society, by Drs Baumler and Herman Weber, 1869, arts, xviii. and xxvi. See also Clinical Lectures on Pulmonary Consumption, by F..Von Niemeyer, Syd.Soc. Trans., 1870. Trousseau also, in his article on Hremoptysis,says, Elles appellent vers les organes nSspiratoires an mouvement fluxionnaire qui pent determiner Involution d'une phldgmasie plus ou moins dangereuse, etc.
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