On the so-called fatty degeneration of the placenta / by James M. Cowan.

  • Cowan, James Moffat.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the so-called fatty degeneration of the placenta / by James M. Cowan. 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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    not be held they determine the specificity of any lesion whatever. In the case of pneumonia, it cannot he said, oleo- albuminous granules are characteristic of the disease ; for not only are they, hut molecules and granules, epithelial scales, and true pus-corpuscles, highly organized cells, found in the matter poured into the air vesicles ; the former are merely an early stage in the development of the elements composing the matter exuded. It is of little moment to our present purpose to inquire—besides, it is a disputed ques- tion—whether or not the true pus-corpuscle is really formed from these granules ; this, however, is certain, the former are more highly organized than the latter. Again, in some soft cancers, they are found in great abundance. What shall we conclude from this fact ? that soft cancer is an inflamma- tory lesion ! It is impossible ; for, in addition to these bodies, and in as great abundance, are seen cells highly organized, possessing one, two, or three nuclei, and these again often nucleoli. Besides, the general symptoms will not permit it. Shall we not rather conclude that the former are the source, or rather the remains of the latter, for it is in the softest forms that these fat-corpuscles are the most numerous;—they seem to me to be the lowest type of organization, the first in the series of cell growth, the penultimate in their decay. In the case of the placenta, that these granules do result from the softening of an exudation external to the villi is proved by their being loosely adherent to their walls, not incorpo- rated in their true structure ; easily acted on by water, which causes them to swim loosely in the field of the microscope ; and, being easily dissolved on the addition of sulphuric ether,— a striking difference of action we have seen in those cases in which the oleo-albuminous granules were deposited around the bloodvessels within the villi, and therefore removed from the action of water and sulphuric ether. In this last case, it has been disputed whether the corpuscles are owing to an inflammatory exudation, or to a fatty degeneration of the true tissues of the walls of the bloodvessels. In the analogous case of the disease in the bloodvessels of the pia mater, in connection with cerebral softening, Mr Paget1 maintains the lesion in that case consists of a true morbid condition of the proper tissue of the vessels, while Dr Ben- nett2 has endeavoured to prove, it is in consequence of an exudation of liquor sanguinis, and is therefore inflammatory. I need hardly add, the same general arguments which have been stated already, apply with equal force against the in- 1 Lectures on Surgical Pathology, vol. i., p. 142. 2 Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, 1843, vol. lix., p. 344.
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