218 DISEASES OF THE PARENCHYMA OF THE LUNG. 



and mild and innocent inflammation of the region whence the lym- 

 phatic vessels originate, suffice to excite the glands, of individuals who 

 are thus affected, into an active production of new cells. Inflamma- 

 tion and suppuration of the glands do not take place in all or even 

 in the majority of cases, the morbid action usually limiting itself to a 

 simple cellular hyperplasia, that is to say, to an enlargement of the 

 glands, from multiplication of their normal cellular elements. But, as 

 the retrogression of all morbid processes in individuals of this class is 

 extremely tedious, the glandular enlargements are exceedingly obsti- 

 nate in character, and in many instances (and, the greater the mass of 

 cells, so much the more apt is it to happen) a partial or diffuse caseous 

 degeneration of the swollen gland is the result. 



Persons whose lymphatic glands participate in the general delicacy 

 of the tissues, and in their tendency to this profuse cell-formation un- 

 der the stimulus of inflammation, are said to be scrofulous. 



We lay especial stress upon the circumstance that, in scrofulous 

 individuals, the tendency to glandular enlargement by cellular hyper- 

 plasia is constantly combined with a general tendency to disease, par- 

 ticularly to inflammatory disease. This is so very marked as a rule, 

 that the exciting causes of " scrofulous eruptions," " scrofulous ophthal- 

 mia," " scrofulous catarrh," and other so-called scrofulous disorders, are 

 apt to escape observation. It often appears as if such inflammations 

 came on spontaneously (" of themselves," as the laity say). There is 

 no anatomical sign by means of which a " scrofulous " ophthalmia or a 

 scrofulous eruption can be distinguished from similar non-scrofulous 

 disorders, and, with the exception of the implication of the lymphatic 

 glands, it is only from the insignificance of the causes from which the 

 affections proceed, the frequence of their recurrence, and their obsti- 

 nate persistence, that we can infer their scrofulous nature. 



Now, if this feeble power of resisting noxious agents, this suscepti- 

 bility of scrofulous individuals, have not subsided at the period when 

 the lungs become more especially liable to disease, although the fre- 

 quence of the moist eruption, the obstinate affections of the cornea and 

 conjunctiva and the like, meantime have diminished, yet pneumonic 

 processes are now apt to occur from causes equally trifling with those 

 which formerly gave rise to the ophthalmia and the eruptions, etc. ; 

 and such pneumonic affections evince the same obstinacy which the 

 other so-called scrofulous diseases used to show, a circumstance which 

 greatly favors their termination in caseous degeneration. 



Upon glancing over the various causes which experience points 

 out to us as predisponents toward consumption, it will be strikingly 

 apparent that they all agree in one particular, that they all retard 01 

 disturb the normal development and conservation of the organism. 



