438 INFLAMMATION. 



This certainty as to the nature of this degeneration could be obtained by a 

 study with high amplifications of the microscope, such as 1000 to 1200 

 diameters. The best specimens for the study with such high powers I obtained 

 by the treatment with a one-half per cent, solution of chloride of gold, in 

 which solution the specimens were placed for one hour and twenty minutes, 

 after having been thoroughly soaked in distilled water. By this, the blood- 

 vessels were rendered dark blue violet, and the gray substance, with its 

 nuclei, purple, while the shining fields remained unaffected. Here I could 

 see the first change into the shining, homogeneous mass before mentioned, at 

 the periphery of the capillary blood-vessels, and in the mesh spaces of the 

 bioplasson reticulum. By the transformation of the liquid contents of a mesh 

 space into a semi-solid shining mass, the space became enlarged, and the 

 neighboring reticulum was pushed apart. By coalescence of neighboring 

 shining formations, larger clusters with fluting outlines originated, in the 

 middle of which often a faint trace of bioplasson was recognizable in the 

 shape of a few delicate granules and their connecting filaments. Whether 

 or not the reticulum of the bioplasson within the homogeneous masses was 

 destroyed, I am unable to say. Not quite infrequently I met with small 

 clusters of the homogeneous mass around nuclei of the gray substance, as if 

 ensheathing them. In the further progress of the degeneration, a great many 

 capillaries became destroyed ; probably first by pressure, and later by trans- 

 formation. These blood-vessels, free of the change just described, looked, 

 especially in their transverse sections, as if compressed and engorged with 

 blood-corpuscles. 



My researches prove that there are waxy degenerations going on in the 

 brain-tissue kindred to the waxy degeneration in other organs, such as the 

 spleen, the liver, the kidneys, and the placenta. The intimate reason of this 

 degeneration is not known, nor do we understand its intimate chemical con- 

 struction. One thing is certainly of interest in the case examined namely, 

 that the blood-vessels being destroyed to great extent by waxy degeneration, 

 the circulation of the blood in the brain is interfered with, and an encephal- 

 itic process may in consequence ensue ; or the walls of the blood-vessels, 

 being rendered brittle by the waxy degeneration, may give way the same as 

 in fatty degeneration, and give rise to cerebral haamorrhage. 



