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of the larynx, trachea and bronchia is a very different disease from the croupy affections of those parts, it necessarily follows that some other morbid cause must intimately unite with inflammation, in order to produce the phenomena of croup. This, it is obvious by the hoarseness and anxiety which attend the disease from the very beginning, must be a spasmodic affection of the par vagum, and more especially of the superior and recurrent branches; the frequently more or less distinctly marked intermittent character of the disease show also the important share of the nervous system in the production of the phenomena. I have been further strengthened in the conviction of the correctness of this view by the observation that the symptoms which are wanting in simple inflammation of these organs, but belong to croup, may all, with the exception of the pseudo-membrane, be produced by spasm of those parts: thus we observe in laryngismus stridulus and in whooping cough, the whistling tone on inspiration; in asthma the paroxysms of suffocation and the hoarseness; and a rough metallic sound very like the croupy tone in many kinds of spasmodic cough. Every one who has seen the laryngismus stridulus will also admit the possibility of a rapidly fatal issue in a purely spasmodic affection.

That a complication of two such important morbid causes can produce the formation of a membranous substance, is so much the more probable when we reflect on the fact that similar membranes are produced as the morbid product in cases of chronic inflammation of the large intestine. From what has been said, therefore, my view is that croup is a nervous inflammation, or according to Schönlein's expression, a neurophlogosis of the larynx, trachea or bronchia; that inflammation and spasm are equally essential in the causation of croup; and that the individual forms of the disease are produced by the greater or less predominance of one or other of these morbid states.

(To be continued.)

419

ESSAYS ON GENERAL PATHOLOGY,

BY PROFESSOR HENDERSON.

(Continued from Vol. VII, page 524.)

Alterations in the constitution of the fibrine, &c. of the blood and tissues.-Among the more remarkable changes which have been introduced within the last few years into the phraseology of animal chemistry, and into the conceptions entertained of its elements and processes, perhaps none exert so wide an influence on the language and speculations of pathologists as those which have sprung from the proteine theory of Mulder. The old terms fibrinous, albuminous, and albuminoid, although they did not necessarily restrict our conceptions of the animal principles they were intended to specify, to notions of things absolutely identical in all their properties and aspects with the familiar fibrine or albumen of ordinary venous blood, yet did not admit of so extensive a range or so easy a current of thought, as the proteine system does, regarding the diversity of forms and constitution which may be possible in the animal compounds of health and disease. The old nomenclature and its substratum of chemical notions, placed fibrine and albumen in the centre, as it were; and all the possible constituents of healthy tissues, as well as of morbid products, that were not plain fibrine or albumen of the common stamp, stood, seemingly, round these typical bodies in a circle so confined, and pressed so closely on the central form, that a distinct idea of any actual difference could hardly interpose. The proteine theory, on the other hand, if it too must build its manifold elements around a central object, (proteine, from TgwTεúw, I am first,) does so in such a fashion, that the diverse principles it presents arrange themselves rather in serial order, each with the identifying element within,-a succession of separate compounds, or derivatives, having the same root with various affixes and prefixes, to use the language of the schools. Analyses which profess to shew certain differences of chemical composition in some of the, so-called, proteine compounds, and a theory which avers that

differences in chemical composition exist in all, together succeed in creating distinct ideas of an almost endless diversity of substances, while still the notion of unity among the whole is preserved by the admission of the same root in each as the principal member of every compound. Thus, to give the most ordinary examples of asserted analysis, while the proteine root itself is held to be composed of Carbon 40, Oxygen 12, Hydrogen 31, and Nitrogen 5, the following is said to be the composition of certain derivative compounds:—

Fibrine, .... Proteine 10 equiv., Sulph. 1, Phosph. 1.

Albumen,. Proteine 10 equiv., Sulph. 2, Phosph. 1.
Caseine,.... Proteine 10 equiv., Sulph. 1.

And, in like manner, all compounds that differ from these in physical and physiological properties, and which in the old lax phraseology were termed fibrinous, albuminous, and so forth, from their general resemblance more or less to fibrine, &c., are held to be compounds of proteine with one or more other elements in diverse proportions, though these elements and proportions may not have been yet determined.

All this is in harmony with, or rather is the natural fruit of, the strict and precise chemical philosophy of the age; and it cannot be denied that, whether the details of the proteine theory be correct or not, there is something far more satisfying to the mind in doctrines that present definite, tangible, and, therefore, it may be conceived, adequate, material causes for diversity of properties among substances, than in such as could go no farther in their explanation of such diversity than suggesting the possibility of certain mysterious states of the same substance being capable of causing in it a difference of behaviour in different circumstances, without any change of chemical constitution having preceded. When all analyses, such as they were, of organic masses containing what have since been so generally termed proteine compounds, presented the chemist with the everlasting fibrine as the component of the solids, and the no less constant albumen as the animal principle of the yet unused fluids, or of solidified morbid deposits, we wonder that the term proteine was not long before Mulder's time applied to one or both. Proteus, "the prophetic old man of the sea," was in his

day distinguished by eluding pursuit under a multiplicity of strange forms, and, when caught, by resuming on the instant his proper and original shape. And, in like manner, the constituents of living animal flesh, of morbid growths, of blood, and effused matters, however marked the physiological dissimilarities they displayed in their proper places, and however varied the circumstances in which they occurred, the parts they acted, and the shapes they put on, were no sooner grappled with by the chemist than they stood confessed mere fibrine or albumen, and vitality had to account for almost all that chemistry failed to reveal for all the specialities that distinguished the forms and capabilities of the diverse textures and organs. In all this there was an unsatisfying vagueness with which no one ought to have been contented, notwithstanding that ultimate analyses led many of the best chemists of the time to conclude that an identity of elements composed the substances which differed so materially in physical and physiological properties. For isomerism was not unknown, and isomeric principles might have been advanced to save chemistry from concessions so much at variance with its growing tendencies. On this stage of the subject, Liebig observes, "The question, in what way the elements of fibrine, albumen, and caseine are arranged, is one of the most interesting and important in animal chemistry. These three bodies contained (at that time this was still believed in the case of fibrine) an equal amount of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, while there was great difference in their physical properties. But we had been long familiar with groups of compounds, which, with a perfect identity of composition, exhibit the most marked differences in their properties; this supposed identity of composition was not, therefore, surprising. In all isomeric substances, more exact research had demonstrated, that their elements were differently arranged, and that, consequently, their chemical constitution was to the full as different as were their physical properties. Although their composition in 100 parts was the same, yet their atomic weight, or the products of their decomposition, or their density in the state of vapour, was different; the variations in their chemical constitution corresponded to that of their physical properties. What, now, according to these

previous observations, was the cause of the great dissimilarity in the properties of the above-mentioned animal substances? If their elements were differently arranged, or the products of their decomposition or transformation different, this formed, of course, no obstacle to the probable conversion of one into the other, of caseine or fibrine into albumen, or of albumen into caseine and fibrine, since the study of isomeric substances had taught us, that in many cases, even where the difference of chemical constitution was very great, such transformations of one into another actually occur. All this was left unexplored." -(Chemistry of Food, p. 22.) And then he goes on to comment on the proteine theory, condemning Mulder for neglecting the field of isomeric research, "which promised so rich a harvest," and for assuming, "on the ground of the most defective experiments, that in these three substances the four above-named elements were combined, exactly in the same way in all, to form a group, which group constituted a distinct substance, capable of being isolated, to which the name of proteine was given."

Into the dispute concerning the proteine theory we shall not enter farther than to say, that the objections of Liebig appear to be of so grave a character that the whole doctrine must be regarded as in abeyance, waiting, if it indeed be true, the further labours of the chemist to restore it to the place it once occupied. True or false, however, it furnished at least the occasion, or heralded the great step in advance, which freed physiology and pathology from the mysticisms and crudities of preceding times, and has led to the general, if not universal, belief that where there is a difference of properties in organic compounds, there there must be a difference of chemical constitution, although sometimes, in the words of Professor Paget, "no power of artificial chemistry can tell the difference."

The pathology of Hahnemann, if not indeed of the homœopathic system itself, is in some measure cold, if not positively hostile, to the chemical doctrines of the ordinary school; and hostile it ought to be to all such doctrines as reverse the proper relation in which chemical conditions stand to the vital processes which produce them, and which inculcate a chemical treatment of the mere consequences of diseased action to the neglect of

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