ON THE CHANGES OCCURRING IN 



always temporarily, and often permanently and exten- 

 sively, obstructed. In inflammation, moreover, not 

 only does the blood stagnate in the capillaries, and 

 tend to coagulate in them, but lymph is at the same 

 time also effused into the interstitial cellular tissue, 

 and there partially organised, to the still further detri- 

 ment of the normal capillary circulation. And when, 

 at a subsequent period, the momentum of the arterial 

 blood in the part is reduced by the cessation of the 

 inflammatory action, the new products formed by 

 the effused lymph, being themselves imperfectly 

 nourished, also undergo retrograde changes or de- 

 generations not very dissimilar to those taking place 

 in the adjacent original tissues. 



From these various causes, therefore, the capillaries 

 of organs which have once been the seat of inflam- 

 mation are to a greater or less extent permanently 

 closed, the circulation of blood through the part is 

 proportionally impaired, and the nutrition of the 

 affected structures which depends upon the efficiency 

 of the local circulation is consequently so far dimi- 

 nished as to render their feeble remnant of vitality 

 incapable of resisting the general chemico-physical 

 laws of matter. 



Of the various changes enumerated : 



Softening, or liquefaction, is simply the conversion 

 of the tissues of an organ into a pulpy semi-fluid 

 mass, the result of maceration, and is perfectly analo- 

 gous to soft gangrene, the only difference being the 

 absence of putrefaction, which is a chemical proiv.-- 

 requiring the presence of atmospheric air. 



Contraction^ or diminished bulk, is produced 



