Bilharziosis / by Frank Cole Madden.

  • Madden, Frank Cole.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bilharziosis / by Frank Cole Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    and many of the so-called early changes occur in an organ already much thickened by an infiltration not only of the mucous membrane but of all the layers of the wall of the viscus deep to that structure. Even hypersemic patches are often seen on the internal surface of a thickened bladder, and must then be only a manifestation of an increase in an irritation which has already been going on for some consider- able time. In fact, one can best judge of the chronicity of a bilharzial infection in a hollow organ by the thickness of the walls of the viscus and the degree of fibrous transformation of its surrounding tissues. Sometimes a very hard indurated fibrous mass is produced in the muscular and deeper structures of the affected viscus ; and eventually the whole essential structure of the parts is completely destroyed. In such cases very little of the mucous membrane re- mains. In certain cases a mass of bilharzial granu- lation tissue appears to spread inwards and makes the cavity of the organ much smaller, in much the same way that a bone with congenital syphilitic changes, by becoming harder, denser, and thicker in all directions, eventually almost, if not completely, obliterates the central medullary canal of the bone. The analogy is a good one, as the bilharzial fibrous tissue is often a true sclerosis. Very few ova are found in this hard tissue. (Fig. 11.) Sometimes the structure of this mass resembles that of a scirrhous cancer with ova lying in between the columns of epithelial cells, but