Anormal nutrition in the human articular cartilages, with experimental researches on the lower animals / by P. Redfern.

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

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anormal nutrition in the human articular cartilages, with experimental researches on the lower animals / by P. Redfern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    •—their surface, though not perfectly smooth, may yet be glistening, and their general appearance is often such as might lead to the impression, that they are portions of tolerably healthy cartilage, which have been left after the absorption of the other parts. The whole surfaces entering into the formation of a joint, or particular parts of the same, are not unfrequently found covered with fibrous and projecting fringes in advanced life. These are best seen on im¬ mersing the surface in water, when the fibrous processes float out, and may be carefully examined. They are of all sizes and lengths, attached at one end to the surface of the cartilage, and free at the other. They are found most frequently on the cartilages of the patella and trochlear surface of the femur, the substance of these cartilages,, at the same time, being apparently healthy, as far as can be ascertained by the naked eye. The process thus spoken of as ulceration may commence at any part of the cartilage,—on either of its surfaces, or in its very substance, though its favourite seat is the free surface, from which it gradually extends to the deeper parts, destroying them as it meets with them, and, at last, leaving the bone completely bare. Whatever external appearance the disease presents, the structural changes are found to be similar, in all cases, on a microscopic exa¬ mination. These consist of changes in the structure and arrange¬ ment of the cells, and of others in the hyaline or inter-cellular sub¬ stance. In very active forms of disease, the changes in the inter-cel¬ lular substance are little observed, owing to its rapid disintegration, or to its absorption into the cells; whilst, in chronic cases, the split¬ ting of the hyaline substance gives to the surface a character so pecu¬ liar and well-marked, that, after repeated microscopic examinations, it is possible to state, on a simple inspection, what changes the structure will be found to have undergone, when more minutely examined. The first changes which can be noticed in the cells are their en¬ largement and irregular arrangement in the tissue. Some of the cells, in the foregoing observations, were found to measure Tl()th of an inch in their long diameter, and others were five or six times their usual size, over large portions of many diseased surfaces. They become rounded, oval, or oblong, and very generally isolated and irregularly distributed, instead of being elongated and found in groups which form columns in the deeper parts. If only slightly enlarged, their nuclei remain in small number, and are irregular;_ if considerably enlarged, their contents differ entirely from those of healthy cells, and consist of a mass of corpuscles, which are irregu¬ larly rounded, oblong or triangular, glistening on the surface, and varying in diameter from ^J^th to ^^th of an inch, the larger ones being finely granular, or containing a small nucleolus—(Fig. I.) On tracing sections, containing such cells, towards the surface or diseased part, the cell-walls become indistinct,—patches of corpuscles are met with without cell-walls enclosing them, and the corpuscles