On the nature of the substance found in the amyloid degeneration of various organs of the human body / by Francis Harris.

  • Harris, Francis
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature of the substance found in the amyloid degeneration of various organs of the human body / by Francis Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    than a lymph cell; and that moreover when a solution of iodine was applied to them their colour changed to a dark yellowish red, which on the addition of sulphuric acid passed into a deep violet. From these changes in colour he was led to infer that the substance was of a similar nature to that which he had described as cellulose in the corpora amylacea of the brain. Shortly* after this time he pointed out that changes of a similar nature occurred in many other organs and tissues, namely, in the kidney, liver, cartilages, intestinal canal, &c. In his lectures on “ Cellular Pathology f,” he has given his last opinion as to the nature of the substance, its anatomical seat, and the character of the constitutional symptoms which accompany it. His views are as follows :— Almost all parts of the body are capable of undergoing this process of degeneration. The affected parts become enlarged, somewhat indurated and anaemic; the cut surface is semi¬ transparent, but dull; the natural colour of the parts is lost, but the colour of the neighbouring parts and vessels being seen through, gives them a yellowish or brownish tinge. The coats of the small arteries are the most frequent primary seat of this infiltration, and from them it spreads to the parenchyma of the organs; the walls of the arteries become thickened, and their calibre reduced, and hence the anaemic condition of the organs. The muscular fibres of the middle coat are the parts first affected. In the place of each muscular cell a compact homogeneous body is seen, in which, in the earlier stages, the centre of the nucleus appears as a hole; this afterwards disappears, so that a kind of spindle-shaped body remains, from which all trace of cell structure has vanished, no distinction being left between cell-wall, contents and nucleus. When the infiltration has reached this point, it commences to invade the parenchyma of the organs. In the liver, the cells in the immediate neighbourhood of the hepatic arteries are first affected; the liver-cells gradually become homo¬ geneous ; nucleus and cell-wall gradually disappear; and at last nothing is left but an absolutely homogeneous shining body ; the cells are thus converted into a kind of corpora amylacea. In the kidney, the vessels of the malpighian bodies and the afferent ♦ Arch, fur 'patholog. Anatomie, Vol. VI. p. 410; and Vol. VIII. pp. 140 and 364. + Die Oellularpathologie. Berlin, 1858, p. Sdl.
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