Atrophy. 185 



greiioiis foci, embolic ^i:;aiii^rciic. A general putrid intoxication 

 (saf>rd'i!iia. from ffawpbi , (lecomposed, and ai/ia , blood; mixed 

 septic intoxication ) may result from the toxines of putrefymg bac- 

 teria in the blood and the products of decomposition absorbed from 

 a gangrenous focus ; this is likely to run a fatal course with 

 symptoms of fever, collapse, marked cerebral disturbances, myo- 

 cardial degeneration, tendency to multiple haemorrhage, etc. The 

 poisons arising from putrefying matter or generated by special 

 putrefactive bacteria have hsemolytic properties and are paralyzant 

 to the cardiac ganglia or central nervous system. 



Examples of this are frequently afforded in case of wounds of 

 the skin which favor putrid suppuration of the underlying tissue 

 (tooth bites, punctured wounds from stable forks), in putrefaction 

 of the retained placenta and gangrene of the uterus, in intestinal 

 strangulation, deglutition pneumonia and in escape of the contents 

 of the stomach and intestine in consequence of perforation of the 

 walls of these organs. 



Atrophy. 



The term atrophy is employed to indicate a diminution in volume 

 of an organ or tissue without essential alteration in its structure 

 and chemical compositiori. It involves a reduction in size of the 

 cells and tissues (simple atrophy) ; but this often proceeds to an 

 extent that actual loss of the cells results from their complete re- 

 gression { numerical atrophy). The name of the process, derived 

 from Tp6<pos. nourishment, and a privative, means, precisely, loss of 

 nutrition, and is used because atrophy in the main is due to in- 

 sufficient nutrition. This latter factor may depend upon the fact 

 that the cells actually do not receive sufficient nutriment (passive 

 atrophy) or that they lack the ability to appropriate that wdiich is 

 offered them (active atrophy), both of which conditions may syn- 

 chronously prevail and are impossible of definite separation in all 

 cases. 



Atrophy of organs and their elements may in some cases be a 

 physiological phenomenon, a part of the cycle of their development 

 and natural wearing out. Certain structures dev^eloped in 

 embryonic life undergo retrogression even before birth or soon 

 after, as the Wolffian bodies, the ductus Botalli and ductus Arantii, 

 the umbilical vessels and the thymus gland. In the period of most 

 active growth the milk teeth disappear after atrophy of the dental 

 pulp. Throughout the entire lifetime there is a succession of atro- 



