Senile hypertrophy and senile atrophy of the skull / by George Murray Humphry.

  • Humphry, George Murray, Sir, 1820-1896.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Senile hypertrophy and senile atrophy of the skull / by George Murray Humphry. 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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    lar, and a dropsy of tlie pia mater or a hypertrophy of the calvaria or both. The condition is comparable with that of a part under a bell-glans (or cupping-glass) or other ex- hausted receiver; and the results are similar to those which take place in chronic oedema, viz. an increase not only of the fluid or serous components of the blood but of the cell-constituents also, and an increase of tissue-deve- lopment. The latter, indeed, is not an uncommon sequence of prolonged dropsical condition from whatever cause it arises. Thus prolonged oedema of the lower limbs is often attended with thickening of the connective tissues, as illustrated in elephantiasis arabum, where the hyper- plasia may extend to the bones causing thickening of them with nodular outgrowths ; and thickening and sclerosis of bones readily follows upon congestion of blood-vessels in- duced by various causes, that is to say, the greater or less nutrition of these tissues, of bone in particular,—their hypertrophy or atrophy—is dependent, partly, upon their own nutritive energies, partly, upon the greater or less supply of nutritive material and tissue-forming elements, and, partly, upon the more or less true balance between these two. And it may be, or rather must be, a feature of proper and properly regulated nutritive force to appro- priate the required nutritive material and no more—not merely to turn to account, but to control and keep within bounds, the energies of the leucocytes with which they are supplied. The paradox may thus come about that in the connective tissues, more particularly bone and fat, under certain circumstances, a decrease of nutritive force may lead to an increase of nutrition or hypertrophy ; and it may be that the same failure of nutrition which in the aged person causes wasting or atrophy of the highly or- ganised brain-tissue may cause thickening or hypertrophy of the more lowly organised brain-case, first, by inducing an increased afflux of blood there, and, secondly, by dis- abling the osseous tissue of the skull from controlling the ossifying tendencies of the blood-elements effused into it. Whatever may be the view of the precise pathology of