Histology of the cholera evacuations in man and the lower animals / by W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D.

  • William Lauder Lindsay
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Histology of the cholera evacuations in man and the lower animals / by W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D. 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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    present only as a flocculo-granular matter, or as mucous flocculi. In the latter case the fluid was whey-like, or of a very pale straw-yellow colour, the vomit closely resembling the ricy stools of the collapse stage : this, however, was very rare. The histological elements of such a ricy vomit were very similar to those of the ricy stools, with the exception, that in the vomit there was generally a considerable amount of pavement epithelium, and a larger quantity of food debris. The mucous flocculi consisted of hyaline bands or ribbons of mucus, colourless, and very delicately striated, bearing on their surface mul- titudes of small granular corpuscles, similar in general appearance to, but smaller than, pus corpuscles, and associated with a varying quantity of molecular and granular matter. Both in the vomit and stools—more frequently in the former than in the latter—the mucus occurred in delicate, almost transparent bands, devoid of the corpus- cular or molecular element. This I have also observed in other diseases—as in the stools of chronic dysentery—illustrating the proposition, that the corpuscular element is not essential to the com- position of mucus. The granular corpuscles varied much in size. Their appearances under the action of water and acetic acid, separately or combined, also varied greatly. They sometimes remained unaffected, or the granularity was simply diminished, the size of the corpuscles being increased : a single or compound nucleus was sometimes developed, occupying a central or lateral position, the granularity of the cell- walls becoming diminished, or disappearing: or, lastly, a delicate transparent cell-wall became evident, more or less closely enclosing the corpuscles, which now assumed the characters of nuclei. Their histological characters varied to such a degree, as to render it im- possible specifically to designate their true nature. In consideration of the reaction on them of acetic acid, they might be denominated mucoid or pyoid—these terms merely implying a general resem- blance to mucus or pus corpuscles, without determining their nature or origin. A consideration of the circumstances under which they are developed, as well as of their microscopic characters, leads me to regard them as chiefly mucus corpuscles and epithelial nuclei. It must be remembered, however, that they are presented to us in a very young, or comparatively immature, condition : they are deve- loped with great rapidity, and thrown off in infinite numbers, from the mucous surfaces of the intestinal canal, almost immediately after birth, or at least long prior to maturity. Hence they seldom present the characters of fully matured mucus corpuscles, or epi- thelial scales. They can be much better studied in the ricy stools than in the vomit of cholera, in consequence of the former frequently containing no other histological elements than mucus bands, and the granular corpuscles in question. Epithelium was very common, nnd was most abundant in vomit containino- little or no food debris, and having n scanty flocculent sediment. Of such a sediment it frequently constituted the bulk:
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