DYSCRASIC NATURE OF THE AMYLOID DEGENERATION. 419 



homogeneous bodies, in which no internal division, no 

 indication of the peculiar course of their formation can 

 be recognized. 



If we take all these facts together, it appears pretty 

 probable, that we have here to deal with a gradual infil- 

 tration of the parts with a substance which has been 

 conveyed to them from without. This is a view which 

 derives essential support from the fact, that nearly 

 always when this change declares itself, a considerable 

 number of organs are affected, and that the process is 

 not confined to a single spot, but that many places in 

 the body are simultaneously affected. Hereby the 

 whole process really acquires an essentially dyscrasic 

 appearance. The only place, where, until now at least, 

 an entirely independent development of this change has 

 been observed by me, and where it may therefore with 

 some degree of probability be assumed that the forma- 

 tion is autochthonous and not imported from without, 

 is permanent cartilage. The cartilages, particularly in 

 people somewhat advanced in life, assume in various 

 places as for example, the sterno-clavicular articula- 

 tions, the symphyses of the pelvis, and the interverte- 

 bral cartilages a peculiarly pale-yellowish hue, and 

 then we may be tolerably certain, that if we try the 

 iodine test with them, we shall obtain the peculiar 

 coloration. These colours are not seen so much in the 

 cartilage-cells as in the intercellular substance, and as 

 cases of the sort do not occur simultaneously with amy- 

 loid degeneration of large internal organs, but quite in- 

 dependently, in individuals, who in the rest of their body 

 manifest nothing of the kind it seems that we really 

 have here to deal with a direct transformation, and not 

 with any importation from without. 



But in vain have I hitherto endeavoured to detect any 

 definite change in the blood, from which the inference 



