A treatise on pathological anatomy / by William E. Horner.

  • William Edmonds Horner
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on pathological anatomy / by William E. Horner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    [ 5S ] Nutritive Irritation of Cellular Substance. I was requested on October 22d, 1828, to examine for Dr. S. Jackson, about thirty-six hours after death, a gentle- man, aged thirty-two, who died from colick. He was ex- tremely corpulent universally, but especially in the abdo- men. A layer of fat half an inch thick was beneath the pe- ritoneum: the several processes of the latter seemed to be so thoroughly converted into fat, that the serous structure was almost extinct, and small drops of oil stood out like a ha- litus upon all the surfaces of the abdominal viscera. The fat was so fluid and abundant that it had collected in the peritoneum, and ran from it in a stream when the abdomen was opened. The body was emphysematous, from the com- mencement of putrefaction. The remains of active inflammation of the gastro intesti- nal mucous surface, of a high grade, could be distinguished, though impaired by the putrefaction, and the whole mucous coat of the stomach and duodenum was coated with bile, which he had thrown up in great quantities before death. The liver was enlarged, and yellow universally, which might have been suddenly produced. There was no bile in the gall bladder. He was said to have lived freely. The lungs were surcharged with blood all over, and em- physematous under the pleura. The heart was enlarged and covered with fat. Vessels taken for lymphatics, and of a very light yellow colour, were seen radiating all along the small intestines. As he had not eaten any thing since Sunday the 18th, it is not like- ly that the lacteals contained chyle; but as the mucous coat of the intestines was tinged with a quantity of bile which had passed down them, it is more probable that the lacteals contained it, and were thereby discoloured. The exhibition which we have just had of what was called the Canadian Giant, a man aged 62, is a strong example of the nutritive irritation in cellular substance. This indivi-