Synopsis of the pathological series in the Oxford Museum : provisionally arranged for the use of students after the plan of the Hunterian collection and chiefly under the divisions of the Hunterian catalogue.

Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Synopsis of the pathological series in the Oxford Museum : provisionally arranged for the use of students after the plan of the Hunterian collection and chiefly under the divisions of the Hunterian catalogue. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    hypertrophies, which occupies a sort of middle ground between hypertrophies and “ tumours,” and which will be better considered when the latter are described. Hypertrophy may be divided into simple hypertrophy, or hypertrophy by growth; and numerical hypertrophy, or hypertrophy by development. In the former the number of original elements in the part remains unchanged, their size alone being increased by an addition of homo- logous particles. In the latter (for which Virchow has proposed the name of “ hyperplasia”) not only are the elements enlarged but their number is also increased. It may be presumed that the two forms occur simultaneously in most instances of hypertrophy. Thus, in the enlargement which the uterus undergoes when fibrous tumours are developed in its walls, simple hypertrophy is shewn by an unusual development and growth of the pre-existing muscular fibres; nume- rical hypertrophy by an entirely new formation of fibres which did not before exist. The latter is, however, more fully exemplified in parts composed of cells (as the epidermis): here numerical increase predominates over simple growth. Hypertrophy must be regarded as essentially an active process set in motion, for the most part, by the operation of an irrita?it. This irritation may be produced in a variety of ways:— 1. Simply “by the unusual exercise of a part in its healthy functions.” 2. The irritant may be mechanical: instances of which are seen in the localised hypertrophies of epidermis, or callosities, occurring on the feet from pressure of boots, on the hands from friction caused by various crafts. 3. “ By the accumulation in the blood of the particular materials which a part appropriates to its nutrition or in secretionas, for instance, of the constituents of the urine causing hyper- trophy of one kidney when the other is atrophied or otherwise diseased. 4. By the action of a blood poison, e. g. hypertrophy of the spleen in fevers. A part that is undergoing hypertrophy naturally requires an in- creased supply of blood or nutritive material. This unusual afflux is, as a rule, a secondary phenomenon; the blood is attracted by the irritated tissues. But there are cases in which it appears that ex- cessive vascularity of a part is the primary cause of the hypertiophy;
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