Volume 1
A compendium of human & comparative pathological anatomy / By Adolph Wilhelm Otto. Translated from the German with additional notes and references, by John F. South.
- Adolph Wilhelm Otto
- Date:
- 1831
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A compendium of human & comparative pathological anatomy / By Adolph Wilhelm Otto. Translated from the German with additional notes and references, by John F. South. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![spots the nerves are entirely deprived of medulla, and the hollow sheaths alone remain; such are not unfrequently seen within the cavity of the skull and spine, in children with cyclopy, hemicephaly, hydrencephalocele, internal water of the head, and spina bifida.’ Further, a higher degree of inflammation seems, as in the brain and spinal marrow, and also in the nerves, capable of producing a softening and fluid state of their substance. The opposite vice, or IN- DURATION, occurs much more rarely in the nerves, and seems to be especially produced in chronic inflammation by the deposit of plastic matter in the cellular tissue, which glues together the separate nervous bundles. Atrophic nerves also appear to be too dry and hard; sometimes the nervous sheath only appears to be thickened and too hard. A true conversion of the nervous substance into cartilage and bone cannot take place.’ (1) Atrophic and paralysed nerves, especially the optic, have frequently this appearance; the lower extremity of a divided nerve is also withered ; in dropsy the nerves are sometimes partially too soft. v. dutenrieth, D. observationes in hydrothoracem virorum, p. 20. Tiib. 1809. (2) Morgagni, Epist. LIT. 31, had already found the optic nerve of an atrophic eye so hollow, that when cut through he compared it to an artery. In hemi- cephalic monsters, I also remarked this very early, and pointed out the con- nexion of water in the head in reference to the nerves. v. Monstror. sex human. anatom. et physiol. disquisitio, p. 21, Francof. a. V. 1811; and since then have often found it confirmed. More recently I have seen in a cyclopic monster, No. 2885 of Bres]. Mus. one of the optic nerves large, with its sheath very firm, but when cut through, quite hollow and deficient in nervous matter. (3) As by bony and stony concretions upon and in the nerves, &c. § 254. VICES OF CONTINUITY are very common in the nerves, as, from their extensive distribution, they participate in every trifling injury; they are then sometimes cut through, torn asunder, or only imperfectly separated and contused, tied to- gether, cut, pierced, &c. If the nerves be stretched gradually, they often yield remarkably, as in many swellings of joints, in exopthalmus, &c., without having their functions destroyed ; but if they be suddenly and violently extended, as by many bony tumours, by aneurysm, &c., they are more injured, and can even be torn through without breach of continuity in the neighbour- ing parts.’ If the larger nerves be wounded, there sometimes arise, besides the necessary palsying of the part with which they are connected, not merely active and continued neuralgia and sympathetic affections,’ but also similar organic phenomena, as in other injured soft parts, viz. swelling, redness, effusion of coagulable lymph, and union. If a nerve be completely divided, both its extremities swell, but especially the upper,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33489166_0001_0465.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
