Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis.
- Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis
- Date:
- 1844
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Researches on phthisis: anatomical, pathological and therapeutical / by P. C. A. Louis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
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![brane con-esponding to the glands. In every case where the mesenteric glands were tuberculous, I found ulcerations in the small intestine,—ulcerations which had not formed without primary or consecutive inflammation of the mucous membrane, and were themselves a perpetual source of irritation. When the tuberculous transformation was limited to a part of the mesentery, this was the portion nearest the csecum,—that cor- responding, generally speaking, to the large class of ulcerations. All this appears to indicate a close connexion between mesenteric tubercles, the various conditions of the mucous membrane, and ulcerations of the small intestine. But in more than half the cases the ulcerations were small, and when very large and con- sequently of old standing, the quantity of tuberculous matter was not greater in consequence. The only case in which I found all the mesenteric glands completely transformed into tuberculous matter was that of a young man, in whom the disease was still recent, who had had very little diarrhoea, and in whom the mucous membrane of the small intestine exhibited the characters of perfect health in respect of colour, consistence, and thickness. (Case xvi.) The only morbid appearance dis- coverable in the membrane (and doubtless much importance will not be attached to this in respect of the point under consider- ation) was a rounded ulceration, of one line [3 millimeters] in diameter, with pale and flat edges, and seated in the neighbour- hood of the csecum. From all this we must conclude that, if inflammation of the lymphatic glands, and inflammation and ulceration of the corresponding portion of the mucous membrane of the small intestine should be regarded as the exciting cause of mesenteric tubercles in certain cases, there are others in which these products acknowledge no such causation. It may perhaps be urged, in respect of the case just referred to, that the tuberculous aff'ection was here of chronic nature, —that the mesenteric disease had originated earlier than the pulmonaiy; and that, consequently, the inflammation of the mucous membrane, to which the glandular alterations were really ascribable, might have disappeared. But this mode of arguing would be nothing more than meeting a fact by an hypothesis, and assuming as constant that which is by no means so, I mean slowness of evolution of tuberculous matter,—on the contrary, as we shall find when engaged with the subject of the Pro- gress of phthisis, that morbid product is sometimes developed](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21513235_0135.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
