490 LECTURE XIX. 



superfluous parts are produced, which do not acquire 

 that degree of consolidation, or permanent connection 

 with one another and with the neighbouring parts, which 

 is necessary for the existence of the body. 



If now in the next place we investigate the history of 

 suppuration, we immediately discover that we must dis- 

 tinguish two different modes of pus-formation, according 

 namely as the pus proceeds from tissues of the first two 

 kinds mentioned in our classification (p. 55), 

 i. e., from epithelium or from connective FlG - 136> 

 tissue. Whether there are also forms of 

 suppuration proceeding from a tissue of the 

 third class, from muscles, nerves, vessels, 

 etc., is at least doubtful, because of course 

 the elements of connective tissue which 

 enter into the composition of the larger 

 vessels, the muscles and the nerves, must 

 be eliminated from the really muscular, ner- 

 vous and vascular (capillary) elements. With this reser- 

 vation we can for the present only maintain the possibil- 

 ity of two modes of pus-formation. 



As long as the pus is formed out of epithelium, it is 

 naturally produced without any considerable loss of sub- 

 stance and without ulceration. But this is in every 

 instance the case, where pus is produced in connective 

 tissue. The real state of the matter therefore is exactly 

 the reverse of what it was previously imagined to be, 

 when a solvent property was ascribed to pus. Pus is not 

 the dissolving, but the dissolved, i. e., the transformed, tissue. 

 A part becomes soft, and liquefies whilst suppurating, 

 but it is not the pus which occasions this softening, on 



Fig. 136. Interstitial purulent inflammation of muscle in a puerperal woman. 

 i, m- Primitive muscular fibres, i, i. Development of pus-corpuscles by means of 

 the proliferation of the corpuscles of the interstitial connective tissue. 280 dia- 

 meters. 



