SCLEROSIS AND OSSIFICATION OF ARTERIES. 4Q3 



In the last place, it is a question where the seat of 

 the fatty degeneration really is. Here too again (as in 

 the cornea) it maybe imagined that the fat is deposited in 

 spaces intervening between the lamellas ; and even now 

 there are still a small number of histologists who will 

 not admit, that connective tissue contains only cells, 

 and no empty spaces. But if a section through one of 

 these (atheromatous) patches be examined from below 

 upwards, it is seen that the same structure which pre- 

 sents itself in the fatty parts, shows itself also in the 

 merely horny or half cartilaginous layers. Bands of 

 fibres, in the intersections of which small lenticular 

 cavities appear, are found there as they are also in the 

 normal condition of the internal coat ; but in the cavities 

 and in the bands of fibres lie cellular elements (Fig. 

 118). The enlargement which the part undergoes in 

 consequence of the process and which we call sclerosis, 

 depends upon this ; the cellular elements of the coat 

 increase in size and a multiplication of their nuclei 

 takes place, so that spaces are not unfrequently found 

 in which whole heaps of nuclei are lying. This is the 

 mode in which the process sets in. In many cases 

 division occurs in the cells, and a great number of 

 young cells are met with. These afterwards become the 

 seat of the fatty degeneration (Pig. 118, a, a'\ and then 

 really p.erish. Thus we have here an active process, 

 which really produces new tissues, but then hurries on 

 to destruction in consequence of its own development. 

 But one who knows that the fatty degeneration is here 

 only a termination, and that the process is really a 

 formative one, inasmuch as it begins with a proliferation 

 he can readily imagine the possibility of another ter- 

 mination, namely ossification. For here we have really 

 to do with an ossification, and not merely, as has re- 

 cently been maintained, with a mere calcification ; the 



