10 



QUATERCENTENARY STUDIES IN PATHOLOGY 



size from five feet above the coecum to a foot below it, thence becoming 

 gradually smaller, to end in long thick flattened masses on the free 

 margin of the rectum. These masses were composed of firm, well 

 developed fibrous tissue, and contained an enormous accumulation of 

 bilharzia ova, these latter could be seen in mass by the naked eye, being 

 so numerous that they gave a peculiar light brown appearance to the 

 areas where they were most abundant. Thus a cross section of one of 

 these masses was of a glistening china white, darkened over numerous 

 areas, to a light brown colour (see Fig. 4). 



Microscopically the fibrous tissue was, for the most part, arranged in 

 beautiful concentric whorls about the enclosed ova — an arrangement 



Fig. 4. — Transverse section of the fibroma represented in Fig. 3. The tag of tissue on the 

 extreme left is a portion of the wall of the intestine, and it is seen to be continuous along the 

 under surface of the tumour. The darker portions are enormous accumulations of ova. 



which could not be detected by the naked eye. This whorled appear- 

 ance was marked in the discoloured areas of the tumours, but in the 

 china white portions (where few ova are found) the arrangement was that 

 of ordinary fibrillar tissue. 



The Appendix Vermiformis was particularly interesting. It was 

 distinctly thickened, measured 6 cm. in length and 8 m.m. in diameter, 

 being almost uniform in thickness along its whole length, though some- 

 what compressed to an oval about its middle portion. A mesentery 

 was present, and opposite this attachment there was a number of 

 delicate polypoid outgrowths from 3 to 10 m.m. in length, which had the 

 peculiar light brown colour characteristic of an accumulation of bilharzial 



(48) 



