CALCIFICATION 



365 



varieties of connective tissue, but calcification may involve any 

 sort of a cell, provided it is degenerated sufficiently. 



Composition of the Deposits in Calcification. The 

 composition of the inorganic salts in calcified areas in the body 

 seems to be practically the same, if not identical, whether the 

 salts are laid down under normal conditions (ossification) or 

 under pathological conditions. This may be shown by a table 

 giving the proportion of inorganic salts found by analysis of 

 normal bone, and the proportion found in calcified materials : l 



Iron may be present in pathological calcification as it is in 

 ossification. According to Gierke, 2 in the fetus the entire 

 skeleton contains iron as far as it has calcified, most at the 

 points of active ossification. Iron was also found in the borders 

 of a splenic infarct, in a thyroid with calcification of its secretion, 

 in a kidney with calcification produced by sublimate poisoning, 

 in calcified ganglion-cells of the brain, and in some psammomas 

 and a psammosarcoma. On the other hand, Gierke could find 

 no iron in calcified atheromatous arteries, lymph-glands, lung 

 nodules, and common petrefaction strumas, or in tumors with 

 bone formation as well as those with calcified degenerated 

 particles. The significance of this iron and the nature of its 

 union are both unknown. Pick 3 considers that in certain forms 

 of calcification of the vessels of the brain, the iron exists as a 

 calcium-iron-albuminate, since calcified granules in the vessels 

 that he studied gave the Berlin-blue reaction for iron, while 



1 Wells, Loc. cit. 



2 Virchow's Arch., 1902 (167), 318. 

 3 Keurol. Centralb., 1903 (22), 754. 



