Volume 1

Green's Encyclopedia and dictionary of medicine and surgery / edited by J. W. Ballantyne.

Date:
1906-1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Green's Encyclopedia and dictionary of medicine and surgery / edited by J. W. Ballantyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    73/576 (page 55)
    ADENOID GROWTHS Adenoid Growths. >'See Nose, Post- nasal Adenoid Growths; Ear, Middle Ear; Lyjiphatic System, Physiology and Pathology ; Palate ; a?id Spine, Surgical Affections of. Adenoma,.—A tumour having a glandu- lar structure. See Tumours. Adenoma Sebaceum. See Skin, Diseases op; rrn</ 'I'umol'hs (of the Skin). Adenosarcoma. See Tumours {Con- nective Tissue (/roup). Adeps. — Lard, the fat of the hog, is used in tlie preparation of ointments and of the Emplastrum Cantharidis. Benzoated lard {Adeps Benzoatus) keeps better than ordinary lard. Adeps Lance or wool fat is got from sheep's wool ; Adeps Lanoi Hydrosus is the well- known Larioline. AdepSOS. See Bat .neology {Greece). Adermia.—Congenital absence of the skin. See Pregnancy {1 ntra-Uterlue Diseases). AdesmOSiS.—Defective development of the connective tissue, especiallx' of the skin. AdipOCere {see a/so Medicine, Forensic). —This is the name given to a wax-like substance formed mider certain conditions in the decom- position of dead bodies. History. — Adipocere has been known for centm-ies, but attention was prominently drawn to it in 1786-87 when the Cimetiere des Innocents at Paris was cleared out on account of the sick- liness of the neighbourhood. In this graveyard great masses of bodies were found packed closely together, often with no earth or only decayed fragments of the coffins between them. Hinidreds of these Ijodies had been converted almost com- pletely into adipocere, in which condition they resisted decay. Even the liones in some cases had not escaped. Adipocere was found in the medullary cavities of the long bones, and in the smaller cavities of the spongy bones, the bones themselves in some cases being softened. These changes were described very fully by Foiux-roy. Since then adipocere has been found not infre- quently in bodies buried in damp soil, concealed in cess-pools or in running water, or kept for anatomical purposes in cold damp cellars. [Sir Thomas Browne, the tidented author of the Religio Medici, is by some admitted to have been the discoverer of adipocere. Writing in iiis Hydriotuphia, in 1658, he stated that in ail hydropical body, ten years buried in the cliurchyard, we met with a fat concretion, where the nitre of the earth, and the salt and lixivious liquor of the body, had coagulated large lumps of fat into the consistence of the hardest Castile soap, whereof part remaineth with ns.] Descripticm.—Adipocere, when dry, is a waxy substance resembling spermaceti in appearance ; usually of a whitish colour, sometimes yellow or orange, or, especially on the surface, stained brown or black. Occasionally the surface has an iridescent appearance like a sheet of mica. Old specimens may be hard and frialile. When more recent or when warm it is soft and ductile. Recent specimens differ also from old specimens in that they are more oily, they contain more water, and they often contain blood-vessels and other fragments of tissue. They differ also in chemical composition. Chemical Composition. — Fourcroy considered adipocere an ammoniacal soap with excess of fat. Chevreul, as the result of analysis, concluded that adipocei'e was an ammoniacal soap contain- ing a bitter substance, and an odoriferous prin- ciple with extraneous colouring matter, and small quantities of calcium and potassium ; and this conclusion has been Itorne out V)y subse- quent investigators. The principal acids present are palmitic, stearic, and oleic. Oleic acid is abundant in recent specimens, and may be absent from bodies that have been long buried. Calcium is found as calcium stearate or oleate chiefly in adipocere which has formed in hard water or in graves traversed by such. Conditions of Formation.—Adipocere is formed most readily in bodies of children or of fat adults; in bodies buried in damp soils, especially those saturated by the drainage from privies or cess- pools ; in water, and especially in running water. Cold favours its formation, and so, apparently, in some instances does heat. Mode of Formation.—It is generally admitted that adipocere results, in part at least, from the saponification of the neutral fats of the body. Under the influence of putrefaction the fats split up into glycerine and fatty acids (including oleic acid). These acids unite with ammonia, derived from the decomposition of albumen, and so form ammoniacal soaps. In course of time much of the ammonia may be replaced liy calcium derived from the water or soil in which the l)ody lies. There has been much discussion as to the pai't played by the muscles and other albuminous tissues in the formation of adipocere. Fourcroy and others have maintained that these tissues I simply supplied the ammonia necessary for the saponification of the fat. One difficulty in the way of acceptance of this view is that in many cases the amount of adipocere is far too great to be all derived from the fats originally present in the body. Accordingly, the view now generally held is that adipocere is derived not only from free fat, but from fat produced in the decomposi- tion of albuminous material. That this is pos- sible is supported by the analogies of fatty degeneration ; of the ripening of cheese ; and of the conversion into fat of albuminous food (Voit and Pettenkofer). Kratter supports this view by the i-esult of microscopical examination of adipocere and of neighljouring tissues. I'ime 7'equired for Formation.—The time