SUPPURATION IN CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 495 



least they have as yet nothing typical about them, but 

 are indifferent formative cells, which might also become 

 mucus- or pus-corpuscles. Pus-, mucus- and epithelial 

 cells are therefore pathologically equivalent parts which 

 may indeed replace one another, but cannot perform 

 each other's functions. 



Even from this it follows that the distinction which it 

 has been sought to establish between mucus- and pus- 

 corpuscles, and for the discovery of which prizes were 

 proposed in the last century, really could not be found 

 out, and that the " tests " could never be otherwise than 

 insufficient, inasmuch as the cells developed upon mucous 

 membranes do not always possess a purely purulent, 

 purely mucous, or purely epithelial character, but on the 

 contrary in a great majority of cases a mixed condition 

 exists. Nearly always, when a catarrhal process deve- 

 lopes itself upon a large mucous surface, as, for example, 

 in the urinary passages, quantities of puriform matter are 

 produced, but its production is confined within certain 

 limits, beyond which only mucus is secreted, and the 

 secretion of mucus also at some point changes into a 

 formation of epithelium. This mode of suppuration must 

 of course always have for its result, that, in places where 

 it reaches a certain height, the natural coverings of the 

 surface do not attain their full development, or that, 

 where they possess a certain degree of solubility, they 

 are removed and destroyed. A pustule on the skin 

 destroys the epidermis, and so far we may assign a 

 degenerative character to these forms of suppuration 

 also. 



But degeneration in the usual sense of the word, only 

 occurs when deeper parts are attacked. This more deeply 

 seated pus-formation regularly takes place in the connec- 

 tive tissue. In it there first occurs an enlargement of the 

 cells (connective-tissue corpuscles), the nuclei divide and 



