The Bradshawe lecture on the pathological relations of the absorbent system : delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, August 18th, 1884 / by George Hare Philipson.

  • Philipson, George Hare, 1836-
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Bradshawe lecture on the pathological relations of the absorbent system : delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London, August 18th, 1884 / by George Hare Philipson. 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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    farther, if we may judge by the limitation of the morbid process, that if wo admit their dependence on a pre-existing state of cachexia, that cachexia must in many cases be limited to a definite part or district of the organism. It is well lmown, moreover, that when a single gland has undergone scrofulous proliferation, there is a remarkable tendency for the morbid process to spread thence to other glands in its immediate neighbourhood, and thence again to others ; it seems in fact to spread from gland to gland, through the agency of some infective material which the diseased organs evolve. It is well known, also, that scrofulous enlargement of the glands of the neck not unfrequently follows upon certain diseases affecting the throat, such as parotitis, diphtheria, and scarlatina. Now, basing his arguments upon such facts as these, Virchow maintains, and we think with reason, that scrofulous proliferation of the lymphatic glands, like ordinary inflam- matory hyperplasia of the same organs, is always secondary to the same peculiar process, going on at the mucous surface or other part, which is in direct relation with them by means of the lymphatic vessels ; that scrofulous disease of the glands of the neck is traceable to some inflammatory condition of the throat, fauces, or contiguous parts ; of the bronchial and mediastinal glands to pulmonary or bronchial inflammations, and of the mesenteric and retro-peritoneal glands, to similar conditions of the alimentary canal. He considers that there may be some specific quality or element in the primary inflammation, and a tendency in its products to undergo rapid decay similar to that which characterises the morbid products of the diseased lymphatic glands, but that generally they are not recognisable, from the fact, that in this case the cells are mostly developed at a free mucous surface, and are speedily shed from it. But he considers, further, that there may be some special aptitude or weakness, congenital or acquired, in the lymphatic glands of certain persons, or of certain parts of them, which makes their inflammations, induced by indifferent causes, assume the scrofulous character, (a) In contradistinction to the scrofulous enlargement, tuberculous lymphadenitis may be mentioned. It attacks certain parts of the lymphatic system rather than others, especially those through which the lymph is, as it were, filtered, namely, the lymphatic glands. It is in the glands O) Bristowe’S “Medicine,” p. 62.
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