On anormal nutrition in articular cartilages / by P. Redfern.

  • Redfern, Peter, 1821-1912.
Date:
1849-1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On anormal nutrition in articular cartilages / by P. Redfern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a trace of fibre in those which do not ossify, as the articular cartil¬ ages and those of the nose. So far as I am aware, the actual conversion of the hyaline sub¬ stance of articular cartilage into fibres, in disease, has not been pre¬ viously demonstrated, though the external appearances of such car¬ tilages are sufficient to lead to a suspicion of its occurrence. In many of the states of disease which have been described in the pre¬ ceding observations, the fusion of the walls of old cells with the inter¬ cellular substance, and the division of the gelatinous cell-contents into as many pieces as there are corpuscles or nuclei in the interior, were seen to take place much more evidently than they ever are in the healthy state, proving that this is one very important mode in which new cells are formed and the old ones removed from the tissue. The most important uses of articular cartilages are mechanical. They constitute a beautifully smooth and highly elastic covering for the ends of the bones, thus facilitating motion, and decomposing a large portion of the forces, which would have produced repeated fractures, had they been applied directly to the bones. But, as these textures are subjected to great friction, they would wear away gradually, but for the constancy of their nutritive changes, which are sufficient to prevent this, as is shown in the fact that the cartil¬ ages are not thinner in individuals, or in particular limbs that are almost unceasingly employed, than in others; and that, though the cartilages are a little thinner in old than in young persons, the differ¬ ence has never been shown to result from friction, nor to exceed in amount similar changes known to take place in other textures as age advances. Again, the elasticity of most, if not of all substances, is impaired by constant use, in which we see an additional necessity for the constantly recurring changes in articular cartilages. The fact being certain, that important nutritive changes do constantly take place in these textures, it is surely inconsistent with true patho¬ logy to conclude that they are not likewise subject to anormal nutritive changes, similar to those from which all other textures are known to suffer. And yet, the argument can have no weight with¬ out the support of numerous and well-ascertained facts. Mr Birkett,1 following out Kichet’s view, has endeavoured to show that bone and cartilage in their relations to each other are similar to true skin and cuticle. To prove this, however, appears to me to require some explanation—why the cells of cartilage should so readily produce others, when no single epithelial cell can perform a similar function ;—why articular cartilage is never reproduced, whilst cuticle and epithelium are replaced more readily than any other tissues in the body;—why, when there is a very obvious chemical difference in the deep and superficial layers of cuticle, no such difference can be shown in the parts of articular cartilage;— and why the deep cells of cartilage are arranged in perpendicular 1 Guy’s Hospital Reports, October 1848.