On the morbid anatomy of the cattle-plague now prevalent in Britain : in reference to its supposed identity with enteric fever / by Charles Murchison.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the morbid anatomy of the cattle-plague now prevalent in Britain : in reference to its supposed identity with enteric fever / by Charles Murchison. 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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    The mesenteric glands are sometimes slightly injected, but in most cases they present no alteration of appearance or structure, and they never contain the abnormal deposit met with in the enteric fever of man. Human enteric fever is characterised by definite and easily recognised anatomical lesions ; and, for my own part, I have never been able to discover any analogy whatever with them in those of rinderpest. The alterations of Peyer’s patches in the latter disease are clearly the result of the general inflammation of the mucous membrane* and tend to obliterate the glands, instead of rendering them more prominent. Their resemblance to the lesions of enteric fever is much less than that of the condition of the corresponding glands in cases of cholera, small-pox* scarlatina, pyaemia, and other blood-diseases; It is probable that the diminution in the size of Peyer’s patches in rinderpest, as compared with the glands in a healthy ox, may he due in part to the length of time that has elapsed since digestion has been arrested, as it is well known that these glands are larger and more developed during the digestive process than during fasting. Put whatever he the cause, nothing can be greater than the contrast between the appearance of these glands on the tenth day of rinderpest and on the corresponding day of human enteric fever. In the former case the glands have almost, if not entirely, disappeared; in the latter they are extremely prominent, owing to abnormal deposit in and around the glandules. The contrast is even more remarkable when it is remembered that the glands in the healthy ox are so much more developed and prominent than in the healthy human subject. Moreover, ulceration of Peyer’s patches, con- sequent on the softening and sloughing of morbid deposit, which is the rule in enteric fever, is not found in rinderpest. There was no ulcera- tion or sloughing in any one of thirty cases examined by me; and although it is possible that, in cases of extreme inflammation, there may sometimes be superficial ulceration or even sloughing of the bowel* as well as of the stomach, it is probable that masses of lymph coloured by faeces and adherent to the mucous membrane have often been mis- taken for sloughs. Cattle-plague also differs from human enteric fever in many other anatomical characters* as well as in its duration and extreme con- tagiousness.*' * These differences are fully considered in my published Report to the Royal Commissioners. The views above expressed are also confirmed hjr Dr. Bristowe, who, in his able Repoi't to the Commissioners, remarks, “ I have never detected any important morbid change, referrible to this disease, in Peyer’s patches.”