An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green ; revised and enlarged by H. Montague Murray.

  • Green, T. Henry (Thomas Henry), 1841-1923.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to pathology and morbid anatomy / by T. Henry Green ; revised and enlarged by H. Montague Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    cortex ai'e destroyed, the cells being in all stages of dissolution, from initial swelling with chromatolysis to complete destruction, leaving only the nucleolus recognisable. Some cells are swollen up and no longer retain their pyramidal form ; their processes are atrophied and ap])ear broken off; others are almost globular, owing to swelling up of the nucleus, while again others present a shrivelled, atrophied appear- ance. The motor pyramidal cells do not present the normal Nissl- granules, and a single healthy lookmg cell in a section of the central convolutions is hard to find. There is a great increase in the spider cells of the neuroglia in those situations of the cortex where the atrophy of the nervous elements is most marked, namely, in the frontal and central convolutions and the island of Reil. The vessels are especially visible, owing to dilatation of the perivascular lymphatics and cellular proliferation in the sheath ; numbers of leucocytes also are said to be present; the blood contained in the vessels, however, does not usually contain excess of leucocytes. By the Marchi and Marchi-Pal methods two important observations can be made, namely, the existence of a lai'ge number of degenerated fibres, in various stages of destruction and the absence of the langcniial system ofjibres. Many authorities consider the disease to be a primary inflammatory menmgo-encephalitis, with secondary atrophy of the nervous elements. Tabes, with which this disease is often associated, or preceded, was formerly considered to be a 23nm'ii'y sclerosis; it is now generally looked upon as a primary degeneration of the afferent system of neur- ones, with secondary overgrowth of the neuroglia. Many authorities consider that general pai'alysis and tabes are, pathologically sj^eaking, the same disease affecting different parts of the nervous system, and the writer is of opinion that the inflammatory changes in the membranes and aroimd the vessels, in general paralysis, are secondary to atrophy of the nervous elements.