On the physiology of syphilitic infection / by Fessenden N. Otis.
- Fessenden Nott Otis
- Date:
- 1872
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the physiology of syphilitic infection / by Fessenden N. Otis. 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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![as I apprehend, from the fact that it is not a virus, as ordi- narily conceived, that constitutes the syphilitic influence, but a living, abnormally active bioplast, developing, multiplying, by appropriating as its pabulum the healthy bioplasm which goes to regenerate the fluids and solids of the healthy human organism ; and hence, formed material cannot afford the proper pabulum for its nutrition. Unformed germinal mat- ter alone can appropriate it or be appropriated by and com- bine with it. Not the tissues nor the red blood corpuscles, which are formed matter, but the germinal element of the blood and tissues alone, are affected by its power or influence, which would appear to be but to unduly stimulate and accele- rate the norma] processes of nutrition and development of the germinal element of the blood and tissues. The local action at the point of inoculation appears to me as follows : 1st. A coagulation of the superficial tissue fluids. A dila- tation of the superficial blood-vessels. A consequent slowing of the circulation. The coincident attraction of a variable number of wandering white bloocl corpuscles—phenomena as- sociated with any irritation of living tissue. 2d. An entrapment of the syphilitic disease-germ by the wandering white blood corpuscle (through its amoeboid move- ment), and the incorporation of the disease-germ into the sub- stance of the white corpuscle. 3d. An appropriation (as pabulum) by the disease-germ, of the substance of tbe white corpuscle, and the consequent de- velopment and multiplication of the disease-germ, in the white corpuscle. 4th. A consequent necessity of the white corpuscle for an increased supply of pabulum from the tissue fluids, the ab- sorption of which, producing a rapid increase in size, and an abnormal tendency to fission or multiplication of the white corpuscle, through whose substance I he multiplied disease- germs are now disseminated. 5t.h. Through the multiplication of the white corpuscle thus impregnated by tbe syphilitic disease-germs, the spread of the syphilitic influence at the point of inoculation, and from thence into the adjacent natural channels of the white cor-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22351905_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
