A study of the arteries and veins in Bright's disease / by Arthur V. Meigs.

  • Meigs, Arthur Vincent, 1850-1912.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A study of the arteries and veins in Bright's disease / by Arthur V. Meigs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    degree as to render its existence undoubted. Arteries may often be found in which it could l>e said that the middle coat was unduly thick, and, again, others, in re- gard to tlie state of which there might lx; dispute, but in most instances I have failed to find an increase so great that its existence could be considered to be beyond doubt. It is a much easier matter to be sure that the appearances descried of the intima are morbid; for, in the natural state, in small vessels certainly, it constitutes but a very thin layer, and besides, when it is seen to be many times thicker, as happens in many instances, upon one side of transverse section of an artery than upon the other, there cannot be a shadow of doubt that such an appearance is pathological. This is very different from what is found in regard to the muscular coat, which, if at all thickened by disease, is uniformly so, and there is, therefore, nothing to contrast it with, and its state can be merely estimated as a matter of judgment. It is curious that in one case in which I made many sections (case of J. K ) of different organs and vessels, tlie only artery in which there was un- doubted thickening of the muscular layer was one of the jjrimary branches of the renal. In this vessel the intima was thickened to a slight degree, but much more so at some parts of the circle than at others, and the plicated membrane very distinctly visible around the entire circuit; the muscular coat, however, which was probably of twice the ordinary thickness in a vessel of such size, did not present the appearances which could be called those of true hy- ])ertrophy; for, althougli the muscle bands and nuclei were present and numerous, there were also visible very many other cells which were exactly like those described.as so commonly found in the overgrown intima. These c;lls were, so to speak, wedged in between the muscle elements, and many of them were undergoing pigmentary degenera- tion. Sections of the abdominal aorta in this case, and of the minute arterioles in the renal substance itself, did not show any indisputable increase of the muscular coat, though there was in both overgrowth of the intima. To