PATHOLOGY Mt- lid ( ic, &c
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certain toxic or poisonous substances mixed with the staple food of the people. Perhaps the best known of these is gangrene caused by ergot of rye. One form of the disease is characterized by acute pain and gangrenous destruction of the skin, the gangrene sometimes spreading to the deeper structures and to the bones, and leading to loss of the limbs. At times the mortality from this disease has been great. Numerous epidemics of it have occurred in France (rarely during the present century) ; in other parts of the continent of Europe (Sweden, Norway, Russia) the effects of ergotism have taken the form of a nervous (convulsive) disease called " Kriebelkrankheit." The effects are those due to ergot, the compact mycelium of Clavi.ceps purpurea, produced within the paleae of the common rye. This substance, well known in medicine, is accidentally ground with the rye, and produces gangrene by contract ing the muscular coats of the arteries of the skin so as to seriously diminish the amount of blood sent to it, or it affects the nervous system. (See ERGOT.) Another toxic effect closely allied to ergotism is the pellagra of Lombardy. (See PELLAGRA.) A third disease of the same kind is acrodynia, having a resem blance to ergotism on the one hand and to pellagra on the other. It appears to be somehow connected with bad grain, but the actual poison has not been traced, as in the case of ergot. The observa tions relating to it have been mostly made in France, and in the French army in Syria, in Algiers, and in Mexico. The succession of symptoms is somewhat complex, including disorders of the stomach and intestine, conjunctivitis, oedema of the face, disorders of sensibility and locomotion, and erythematous rashes, mostly on the hands and feet. In Colombia (South America) a peculiar disease, characterized by the hair coining out (pelade), is traced to the ergot - parasite of maize. In the prairie States of the American Union there is a disease of cattle (and sheep) called "the trembles," supposed to be due to some toxic substance in the pasturage. In the human subject in those localities there is a corresponding malady called " the milk-sickness" and suspected of being caused by partaking of the milk or flesh of cows which had been primarily affected. Among toxic diseases we have to include also lead colic, or " dry belly-ache," to which workers in the various compounds of lead are liable, as well as communities here and there whose food or drink, in the course of its preparation or storage, has been con taminated by lead. Workers with phosphorus, also, are liable to necrosis of the lower jaw. More occasional effects are produced by some other chemical elements used in manufacture. By far the most important toxic agent is alcohol, which is often sold in public - houses when it has all the powerfully in jurious properties of new spirit in it. The enormous excise duty of 10s. per gallon is apt to make us forget the coarse and cheap nature of the alcohol often sold as whisky ; this product of distillation may be purchased new from distilleries at as low a rate as Is. 6d. per gallon. The retailing of such new whisky is answer able for an amount of disease to say nothing of violence and crime which an equal quantity of mellowed spirit would by no means produce. There are some not uncommon forms of kidney-disease and of liver-disease which are, in the great majority of cases, the direct results of raw spirits. Both in the liver and the kidney the effect of such spirits is to cause an active growth of the support ing tissue of the organ at the expense of its proper metabolic or glandular tissue. In the case of the liver it causes cirrhosis or hobnailed liver, which is accompanied by abdominal dropsy ; in the case of the kidney it causes a contracted condition, to which the name of cirrhosis is also applied, being one of the forms of Bright s disease. Besides these organs the stomach is apt to become affected by coarse spirits taken frequently ; it falls into a state of chronic catarrh, on the basis of which cancer is apt to plant itself. 18. PARASITIC DISEASES. Reference has been made to the occurrence of a spiral micro-organism in the blood in cases of relapsing fever, to the so-called "bacillus of tubercle," and to the occurrence of micrococci in erysipelas and infective inflammations. For the splenic fever and other anthraceous diseases of the domestic animals, very conclusive experimental evidence has been brought forward by Pasteur and others that the virus somehow goes with or resides in the bacilli which are apt to swarm in the blood. These bacilli also occur in the malignant pustule and wool-sorters disease of man, forms of anthrax which are produced by handling the hides and fleeces of animals. In diphtheria and ulcerative endocarditis micrococci are abundant in the tissues of the affected localities. They are also described for malignant osteo myelitis, and a peculiar double form (diplococcus) has been discovered in pneumonia. The doctrine of infective para sitism is applied by some pathologists to the whole of the specific infective diseases, acute and chronic, as well as to malarial fevers, which are non-communicable. There can be no doubt of the occurrence of very various forms of micro-organisms in the tissues after death from diseases, specific and other, and in the blood and tissues during the course of some diseases, and even in states of fair health. It is premature to call all these bacteria " pathogenic." Their significance in morbid states of the body will be considered, along with their natural history, in the article SCHIZOMYCETES. The animal parasites infesting the human body and the fungi concerned in some skin-diseases and in actinomycosis are treated of in the articles PARASITISM, NEMATOIDEA, and TAPEWORM. (c. c.) INDEX. Addison s disease, 384. Adenoma, 379. ..Etiology, 361. Ague paroxysm, 394. Agues, periodicity of, 395. Albuminuria, 387. Alcoholism, 407. Angeioma, 370. Atrophy, acute yellow, 386. Bacillus, 407. Bacteria, 401. Blood-making, 376. Bright s disease, 3S7. Callus, 307. Cancer, 380. ,, colloid, 382. Catarrh, 377. Chlorosis, 375. Chorea, 391, 398. Cicatrix, 366. Convulsions, 391. Cretinism, 375, 385. Degenerations, 390. Dermoid cysts, 372. Diabetes, 386. " Dissolution principle" in nervous diseases, 393. Dropsy, 388. Dysentery, 396. Emigration of blood-corpuscles, 399. Enchondroma, 370. Epilepsy, 391. Epithelioma, 382. Erysipelas, 398. Exanthemata, contagious, 404. Fever, 394. malarial, 394. relapsing, 403. ,, rheumatic, 397. spirillum, 403. ,, thermic, 394.
- Fibroma, 368.
ossifying, 368. i Giant-cells, 366, 372. i Goitre, 384. Gout, 3SS. Granulations, 363. Graves s disease, 385. Hiematoblasts, 365. Hajmophilia, 375. Hairs in dermoids, 372. Herpes in febrile attacks, 398. Infections, endogenous, 403. ,, exogenous, 403. ,, vicarious, 403. Infectiveness, 401. Inflammation, 398. Leucocytosis, 376. Leuka-mia, 376. Lipoma, 389. i Locomotor ataxia, 392.
- Melanosis, 402.
of horse, 402. Myxcedema, 384.
- Myxoma, 369.
Nerve-repair, 367. Neuralgia, 390. Obesity, 389. Obsolescence, 383. Osteomalacia, 375. Pain in rheumatic fever, 397. Parasitic diseases, 407. Pernicious anmia, 377. Phlegmon, 398. Phosphorus poisoning, 386. Placental function in congenital diseases, 374. Pneumonia, 396. Polypi (mucous), 379. Progressive muscular atrophy, 392. Pseudo-hypertrophic paralysis, 392. Pus, 365. Pyaemia, 401. Repair, 363. Rickets, 373. Rigors, 395. Sarcoma, 368. ,, cystic, 369. Scar, 366. Schizomycetes, 406, 407. Scrofula, 405. Septicsemia, 401. Skin in dermoid cyst, 372. of scar, 366. Species of disease, 403. ,, Simpson on, 406. Spinal cord, degenerations of, 392. Suppuration, 365, 400. Syphilis, 404. Tendon-repair, 364. Tetanus, 391. Thrombosis, 401. Thyroid, secondary tumours of, 3S5. Toxic diseases, 406. ! Tropical abscess, 396. Tubercle, 405. bovine, 406. Tumour-infection, 402. Tumours, 367. ,, cavernous, 370. ,, embryological principle in, 367" ., fibro-cellular, 308. ., glandular, 379. ,, myeloid, 371. osteoid, 371. Typhoid, 403. Typhus fever, de rtoro origin of, 403. Uratic diathesis, 388. Warts, 378.
