408 LECTURE XVI. 



/ 



tainty be affirmed, that we are as yet acquainted with no 

 stage in these changes, which is at all akin to inflammation. 



On the contrary, we see ossification declare itself in 

 the internal coat of vessels in precisely the same manner 

 as when an osteophyte forms on the surface of bone 

 amidst all the phenomena of inflammation. The oste- 

 ophytes of the inner table of the skull and of the cere- 

 bral membranes follow the same course of development 

 as the ossifying plates of the internal coat of the aorta 

 and even of the veins. They always begin with a pro- 

 liferation of the pre-existing connective tissue, whereby 

 partial swellings are produced, in which the deposition 

 of the calcareous salts does not take place until a late 

 period. As soon as this real ossification exists, we 

 cannot help regarding the process as one which has 

 arisen out of an irritation of the parts, stimulating 

 them to new, formative actions ; so far therefore it 

 comes under our ideas of inflammation, or at least of 

 those processes which are extremely nearly allied to in- 

 flammation. When a process of this sort is accessible to 

 treatment, we have always other indications for practice, 

 than in those cases, in which our object is, by the agency 

 of stimulating substances, to prevent the occurrence of 

 certain passive disturbances which hinder the part from 

 discharging its natural functions. 



What I have said will suffice, I think, to make these, 

 in my opinion, extremely important distinctions clear to 

 you. In the next lecture I will lay before you that one 

 among the degenerative processes which is at the present 

 moment the least clear, namely the lardaceous or amyloid 

 degeneration. 



