402 LECTURE XVI. 



basis-substance, the really fibrous stroma of the internal 

 coat, which we plainly see continued towards the exte- 

 rior into the normal internal coat. This fact, that we 

 are able to acquire the direct conviction that the fibrous 

 layer which lies over the de*p6t, is continued into the 

 fibrous layer of the neighbouring normal portions of the 

 internal coat, is one of especial value in the interpretation 

 of these processes. In this manner the view which was 

 for a considerable time defended by Rokitansky also, 

 that the affection consists in a deposit upon the internal 

 coat, is refuted. In a vertical section it is distinctly 

 seen that the most external layers run in a curve over 

 the whole swelling and return into the internal coat, and 

 the old writers were quite right when they said speak- 

 ing of a stage in which the formation of the athero- 

 matous dep6t had already made considerable progress 

 that the internal coat over the whole of the de"p6t could 

 be stripped off in a piece. On the other hand, however, 

 we can convince ourselves, that the inferior layers of 

 the internal coat run directly into the de"p6t, and that 

 their continuity has been broken by their degeneration, 

 so that we have not to deal either with an interjacent 

 deposit (between the internal and middle coat), as the 

 old writers supposed, but the whole of what we have 

 before us is degenerated internal coat. 



In some particularly violent cases the softening mani- 

 fests itself even in the arteries not as the consequence 

 of a really fatty process, but as a direct product of 

 inflammation. Whilst at the circumference a fatty 

 softening takes place, in the centre of the seat of change 

 a yellowish cloudy appearance is seen to arise, where- 

 upon the substance almost immediately softens and dis- 

 integrates, and a mass of coarse, crumbling fragments ia 

 found (Fig. 116, e, e) which fills the centre of the athe- 

 romatous de"p6t. 



