AMYLOID INFILTKATION. 45 



All the organs are not equally fitted for the reception of the 

 peccant material, granting the existence of the dyscrasia. Sup- 

 pose, for example, the blood to be loaded with an excess of 

 fatty matter, we find the liver and the areolar tissue better 

 adapted for its reception than any other part of the body. 

 Suppose earthy salts to be present in the blood in excess, we 

 find them to be deposited by preference in the lungs. Amyloid 

 degeneration, too, invades the organs of the body in a definite 

 order, the kidneys being first affected, then the spleen, liver, &c. 



In conclusion, we must not omit to recognise the possible 

 operation of purely local causes. These are especially traceable 

 in the case of pigmentary metamorphosis, which is most fre- 

 quently determined by local hypera^mia, haemorrhage, and in- 

 flammation. A few, though certainly the most interesting and 

 important varieties of pigmentation, depend on a constitutional 

 disorder, as in the case of melanotic and melana^mic coloration, 

 and the bronzed skin of Addison's disease. 



In the course of the ensuing sections we shall often have 

 occasion to refer, now to the local, now to the general, character 

 of these '' infiltrations ;" the sole object of these preliminary^ 

 remarks being to direct us to the position of these processes in 

 the natural history of disease, and to establish the general 

 characters of the group as a whole. 



A. Ami/loid Infiltration. 



% 46. Passing to the consideration of amyloid infiltration, 

 lardaceous, waxy degeneration, glassy swelling (glasige Verquel- 

 lung), we find ourselves at the outset in a predicament with 

 regard to the definitions given above, inasmuch as we are unable 

 to give a name to the substance contained in the blood, and 

 which transudes from it into the tissues. The infiltrated matter, 

 according to Kekide's analysis, is an albuminous body ; one which 

 differs, how^ever, from fibrin, albumen, <fec., by turning of a 

 bluish-violet or red colour when acted upon by iodine. It most 

 frequently assumes a reddish-brown or mahogany-red tint. This 

 reaction, otherwise peculiar to the members of the amylaceous 

 series, taken together with the circumstance that the substance in 

 question is occasionally found to occur in concentric corpuscles, 

 resembling those of vegetable starch, induced its discoverer, 

 VirchoiVy to call it '• amyloid." Kow, if we search the blood, 



