236 MORBID STATES OF THE BLOOD, ETC. 



§ 201. Simple swelling of the lymphatic glands passes 

 directly into suppuration of their parenchyma, provided always 

 that the production and accumulation of lymph-corpuscles be 

 not checked in time. Not only does tlie reticulum of the lym- 

 phatic nodules get worn progressively away, but the capillary 

 vessels are ultimately torn across, and the corpuscular network 

 of the lymph-path, rich as it is in nuclei and protoplasm, under- 

 goes disintegration. The result is a richly corpusculated fluid, 

 no longer distinguishable from pus, which fills all the cavities 

 formerly occupied by the lymphadenoid parenchyma. When 

 this occurs in a solitary lymphatic follicle, as e.g. in the intes- 

 tinal mucous membrane, we call the resulting condition a folli- 

 cular abscess ; when an entire gland is involved, we term it a 

 suppurating [bubo. Its further progress comes under the head 

 of suppurative inflammation and abscess-formation, as discussed 

 in § 94. 



§ 202. II. Chronic lymphadenitis. Chronic inflammation of 

 the lymphatic glands differs from the acute form not so much in 

 the slower rate of change, as in the permanent character of 

 its results. Several very characteristic forms of chronic inflam- 

 mation may be distinguished. First we have a true overgrowth 

 of the lymphadenoid substance, which indeed is only to be 

 observed in the tonsils and the follicular glands of the fauces. 

 It consists in a uniform increase in amount of all the histological 

 constituents of the follicle, sc. the reticulum, the vessels, the 

 lymph- paths and the cells. Each single follicle attains from 

 three to five times its normal volume, without exhibiting any 

 striking alterations in its texture. 



The leukhsemic form, considered above (§ 181), is most 

 closely related (from an anatomical point of view), to this true 

 o^'ergrowth ; it differs from it in bearing more of a functional 

 character, and also in the mode of its causation ; for it is not a 

 result of repeated catarrh of the corresponding mucous surface. 



§ 203. We come in the next place to a form of chronic 

 enlargement which only occurs in individuals specially predis- 

 posed, and which is therefore regarded as pathognomonic of 

 what is known as " Scrofulosis." 



We employ the same word, in a more restricted sense, to 

 denote the disease of the lymphatic apparatus ; since our general 

 conception of scrofulosis embraces the primary lesions together 



