LFXURIATION. 489 



may see how it leads to ulceration and to the formation 

 of cavities in the interior of parts. It does indeed 

 appear like a contradiction to say that a process, which 

 produces new elements, destroys, but this contradiction 

 nevertheless is merely a seeming one. If you imagine in 

 a part, which had previously been firm, a new-formation 

 to arise of which the individual constituents are loose 

 and easily moveable one upon the other, the process 

 will of course always be attended by a very important 

 change in the usefulness of the part. The simple con- 

 version of bone into medullary tissue (pp. 452, 453) 

 may become the cause of great fragility in the bones, 

 and osteomalacia [mollities ossium] essentially depends 

 upon nothing else than the conversion of compact osse- 

 ous substance into medullary tissue. An excessive 

 formation of medullary spaces gradually advances from 

 the interior of the bone towards the surface, deprives 

 the bone of its firmness, gives rise to a tissue in itself 

 quite normal, but of no service in maintaining the 

 necessary firmness of the parts, and thus in some sort 

 inevitably leads to a loss of cohesion. Marrow is an 

 extraordinarily soft tissue, which in those conditions, 

 where it is red and rich in cell, or atrophied and gela- 

 tinous, becomes nearly fluid. From marrow to perfectly 

 fluid tissues is only a short step, and the boundaries 

 separating marrow and pus cannot in many places be 

 assigned with any degree of certainty. Pus is in our 

 eyes a young tissue, in which, amidst the rapid develop- 

 ment of cells, all solid intercellular substance is gra- 

 dually dissolved. A single connective-tissue cell may in 

 an extremely short space of time produce some dozens 

 of pus-cells, for the development of pus follows an ex- 

 tremely hurried course. But the result is of no service. 

 to the body, proliferation becomes luxuriation. Suppura- 

 tion is a pure process of luxuriation, by means of which 



