272 GLANDERS AND FARCY. 



age, bowever, i)robably never exceeds a year or several montlis, not- 

 withstanding tliat some glanders-nodules, tubercles, and tumors may 

 exist, apparently unchanged, a muck longer time, because the constitu- 

 ents of the latter, the glanders-cells, change. Old ones decay, and new 

 ones take their place even if the whole tubercle or tumor remains essen- 

 tially as it is. It is to be supposed that such a change is taking place, 

 because every old glanders-tubercle or tumor contains always old and 

 new cells in dilferent stages of development. 



The retrogressive metamorphosis may be called a fatty necrobiosis. 

 At lirst small granules (fat granules) make their appearance in the 

 nuclei; the latter swell or increase in size, and grow darker; gran- 

 ules appear also within the cells, but outside of the nuclei ; finally the 

 envelopes or external membranes of the cells decay and fall to pieces, 

 and a granulated detritus is left behind. Therefore, after a regressive 

 metamorphosis has set in, the glanders-nodules or tubercles and tu- 

 mors are found to contain a granulated detritus, small and large 

 granulated cells, and free granulated nuclei, if examined under the 

 microscope. The glanders-cells may thus j)erish or be destroyed 

 without any simultaneous decay of the intercellular substance. In 

 such a case the further changes which are going on in the tissues, in 

 which the glanders-cells are imbedded, diiier according to circimi- 

 stances. If the glanders-cells are but few, and rather far apart, the 

 granulated detritus is removed by absorption, and the morbid process 

 comes to a termination by local healing. In other cases new glanders- 

 cells are produced, and take the place of the old ones, and the morbid 

 growth (tubercle or tumor) continues to exist. K the decaying glan- 

 ders-cells are numerous and lodged close together, the retrogressive 

 metamorphosis is usually attended with a morbid or excessive growth 

 or iH'oduction of intercelhilar connective tissue; and the absorption of 

 the detritus in such a case is attended with, and makes room for, a some- 

 what extensive jiroduction of new iibrous (scar) tissue; linear and some- 

 what prominent, white stripes, usually uniting in a common center, cor- 

 responding to the center of the former neoplastic process, make their 

 appearance and constitute a star-shaped, whitish scar or cicatrix. In 

 chronic glanders such cicatrices occur very often in the mucous mem- 

 brane of the septum ; the hard, fibroid, and callous swelhngs, which 

 are sometimes found in the mucous membrane of the nose, and the 

 fibroid tumors which occur in the lungs, and which are easily distin- 

 g-uished from the more pulpy glanders-nodules and tumors, are pro- 

 duced in the same way. 



Frequently, however, that is, in all such tubercles and tumors in 

 which the glanders-cells are numerous and separated only by very little 

 intercellular tissue, the decay or retrogressive metamorphosis of the 

 glanders-cells involves and causes a simultaneous decay and destruction 

 of tlie intercellular substance, and of the tissue in which the morbid 

 products are imbedded. The continuity is destroyed, and an abscess is 

 formed. The decay usually, though not necessarily, begins in the cen- 

 ter of the nidus of cells, and it seems that certain external influences 

 are able to change or to accelerate the whole i^rocess. So, for iustiince, 

 a general decay, or a formation of ulcers or abscesses, does not usually 

 take place in the mucous membrane of the maxillary cavities, but almost 

 invariably, or, at any rate, a great deal earlier in such parts of the nasal 

 mucous membrane, which are exposed to the ciuTent of air passing 

 through the nose at each breath. The irritation caused by the passage 

 of air probably constitutes the cause of the more frequent occurrence of 

 glanders-ulcers in the mucous membrane of the septum than in any 



