The nature of so-called 'parasites' of the skin / by W. Tilbury Fox.

  • Fox, William Tilbury, 1836-1879.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of so-called 'parasites' of the skin / by W. Tilbury Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    or adherent in moniliform strings of two to four, or five in length. The greater number of the granules are uninuclear; some, however, are binuclear or tri- nuclear. The binuclear granule is in process of pro- liferation ; the original nucleus has split into two, each moiety has become a separate nucleus, the space between them has increased, a septum has arisen in the interval, and the cell has become oblong —an oblong cell with two nuclei, or rather two inde- pendent but adherent cells; cells that may subse- quently divide and become separate unities. This is the mode of cell-proliferation.” At an early stage, and in near contact with the vital tissues, the ten- dency is to the formation of granules; but, “ removed from the source of nutrition proliferation weakens, the divided cells remain adherent, and either retain their globular and embryonic shape, and give rise to moniliform filaments, or they grow in length at the expense of their contents, and form cylindrical and transparent filaments divided by septa, each inter- modial segment representing a single original globu- lar granule or cell.” They lapse, in the latter case, “ into an irregular and filamentary proliferation, giving rise to an inferior form of organisation neither so complete nor so permanent, and which converts the higher animal organisation into a lower and phy- tiform organisation—an animal tissue into one which might be likened to a vegetable tissue.” These quo- tations give us as the source of the so-called fungus- elements, the normal tissues (epidermic granules); the nature of the disease pathologically as a “granular degeneration;” the mode of increase by the division of the nuclei of the cells, and the secondary division of the cell itself; the formation of so-called mycelium by the division of the nuclei, but the non-separation of the binucleated cell into separate unities. These stages are best seen in favus. The granules are glo- bular, uninucleated, bi- and trinucleated; the my- celial forms are moniliform and opaque, cylindrical and transparent, with a branched and ramified fila- ment. “ In the case of the trinuclear cell a bifurca- tion is effected, and the proliferation of each part of the tissue-cell lays the foundation of a branched and phytiform growth.” The peculiarity of favus “ is due to a pustular complication;” the layer of the favous mass next the basement membrane of the derma is