An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green.

  • Green, T. Henry (Thomas Henry), 1841-1923
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    44/618 (page 28)
    11. DEGENERATIONS. The degenerations (p. 22) may be advantageously arranged in three groups :-(!) Cloidy Swcllmg and Fatty Changes, including fatty mfil- tration (accumulation) and fatty degeneration ; (2) Mucoid, Colloid, Hjialine, and Amyloid Degenerations, resembling one another m the transparent structureless character of the degenerative product; and (3) Calcareous Lifiltration and Pigmentan) Changes. CLOUDY SWELLING. Cloudy swelling, sometimes known as parenchymatous or granular degeneration, or albuminous infiltration, is a frequent change, being found in all diseases attended by considerable pyrexia. Wickham Legg and Liebermeister produced it by subjecting animals to a high external temperature; they therefore regarded the change as due simply to the fever, which, in their opinion, caused mcreased destruction of proteid. Against this view it may be urged : (1) that ncreased destruction of tissue may itself produce the elevation ot temperature ; (2) that the change is less marked in long-contmued fevers than in the relatively short fevers of the acute specific diseases; and (3) that the degeneration is specially pronounced in bad cases ot diphtheria, in which disease the temperature is often low. All this leads to the belief that mere fever is an insufficient cause. A more probable explanation is that the infective material in the blood—the cause of the fever—has a more or less deleterious action on the tissues. This is supported by the observation that cloudy swelling is the first change noticeable in poisoning by phosphorus, arsenic, and the mineral acids, all of which lead ultimately to fatty degeneration of protop asm. Again, cloudy swelling is found in inflamed parts, and we shall see later that inflammation is always due to the action of an irritant, which, if it were of sufficient intensity, would produce death ot the tissue. It would ajipear, therefore, that cloudy swelling ts due to the action upon the tissues of some poison which tends to cause (heir death: elevation of the temperature of protoplasm above the normal may assist its action. In considering the histology of this change, we shall find that advanced cloudy swelling passes insensibly into fatty degenera- tion : it is, therefore, to be regarded as the Jir.sl step towards fatty degeneratioti. SEATS.—The liver, kidneys, heart, and voluntary muscles show the change most plainly; but ])robably all protoplasm suffers. The