Caseous Tumours foicnd in the Muscles of the Hake. 465 



found in other positions, as in the submucous tissue of the 

 stomach, the gills, etc. 



In the smaller masses above described, the microscopic 

 appearances were very similar to those met with in the larger 

 mass, but here the continuity between the two zones of granu- 

 lation tissue {i.e., that lining the cavity and that surrounding 

 the degenerated muscle mass, Fig. 1, h, c) is unbroken. 



Although the tumour is described as caseous, it appears 

 that this degeneration of the muscle is rather of the form 

 described by Zenker as the waxy or vitreous degeneration, 

 one of the forms of coagulation necrosis. According to 

 Ziegler^ there is great tendency to the loss of striation of 

 the coagulated muscle elements under certain conditions in 

 the human muscle. He says, "Under various influences," 

 . . . "as after bruising, forcible extension, raising of the 

 temperature, or febrile disease, the muscle substance is here 

 and there disintegrated, and the contractile myosin coagulates 

 into a lustrous homogeneous mass. This mass breaks up 

 into shining flaky lumps." He further says, " It is hardly 

 ever quite absent where there has been copious exuda- 

 tion." 



After I had made the above observations I came across 

 a most admirable description of the changes found at the 

 point of inoculation for Fowl Cholera.^ 



M. Cornil describes a condition almost identical with 

 that we have given above. 



At the point of injection " the muscle has lost its normal 

 physical characters. In place of being pale, white, or slightly 

 pink, semi-transparent and of a peculiar elastic softness, it is 

 now grey and opaque with lardaceous appearance, apparently 

 dense and hard but in reality quite friable. It may be 

 double or even triple its normal thickness at the part most 



1 Text Book of Pathological Anatomy. Ziegler. Translated by D. 

 MacAlister. Macmillan & Co., Loudon, 1883. 



2 Observations histologiques sur les lesions des muscles determinees par 

 I'injection du microbe du cholera des poules, sur le sequestre et sur la poche 

 qui le contient — A. V. Cornil, Arch, de Physiol., t. x., 1882, p. 615. Les 

 Bacteries et leur role dans I'Anatomie et I'histologie Pathologiques des 

 Maladies Infectieuses — A. V. Cornil, et Y. Babes. Paris, 1885. 



