On abnormal nutrition in articular cartilages / by P. Redfern, M.D.

  • Redfern, Peter, 1821-1912.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On abnormal nutrition in articular cartilages / by P. Redfern, 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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    the free surface, that the cartilage is often previously swollen and softened, and that more than one form of the ulcerative process may sometimes be observed in the same articulation. ilr Toynbee states -}— The investigations of Sir B. Brodie, Mr Mayo, and more recently of Mr Liston, leave no doubt, that in some diseases to which articular cartilage is subject, blood-vessels are dis- tributed throughout its substance. He speaks also of researches which he has made upon those morbid states of articular cartilage, in which blood-vessels are prolonged into its substance, and upon the manner in which the vessels are introduced into it. Henle says, that cartilage is neither liable to inflammation nor hyi^ertrophy, and that atrophy depends on a want of nutrition from diminished vascularity of the neighbouring textures. He and MandP agree in the view that the changes to which cartilages are subject in diseased joints, depend on maceration in the pus, altered synovia, &c. M. Richet, Prosector to the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, takes a similar view,^ and even says, that portions of cartilage are not un- frequently met with in joints in a very advanced stage of disorgan- isation, retaining all the chemical and physical characters. He pro- poses that the terms inflammation and ulceration of cartilage should be rejected, and replaced by the phrases, softening, wearing, usure, and erosion; and shows that cartilage may be softened, reduced to a flbrous state, or even totally disappear in joints, which certainly cannot be called healthy, but which sometimes present Httle or no symptoms of derangement during life. M. Richet's reviewer* in 1846 says: It is indisputable that cartilage is frequently removed by the action of the adjacent tissues, without itself having any active partici- pation in the process. Professor Goodsir attributes the removal of texture in ordinary ulceration to the formation of nucleated cells, which take up, during their growth, the materials of which the surrounding parts are com- posed. Speaking of ulceration of articular cartilages,^ he describes a gelatinous or a false membrane on the surface, both consisting of nucleated particles, intermixed in scrofulous disease with tubercular granular matter, and in simple inflammation with fibres and blood- vessels. He was the first to point out that the cells of the cartilage become larger, rounded or oviform, and instead of two or three nucleated cells in their interior, contain a mass of them. At the very edge of the ulcerated cartilage the cellular contents of the enlarged cartilage corpuscles communicate with the diseased membrane by openings more or less extended. If a portion of the false membrane ' Philosophical Transactions, 1841, Part I., p. 172. 2 Mandl—Manuel d'Anatomie Gencrale, p. 381. ^ Recherches pour sei-vir ii I'Histoire des Tumeurs Blanches. (Aunalcs dc la Ghirurg. Fran9aiae et Etrangere, Mai, Juin, 1844.) British and Foreign Medical Keview, vol. xxi. p. 136. Anatomical and Patliological Observations.