Progress of Rational Pathology. 227 



can discover in the exsudations no character of inflammatory- 

 secretion : Gluge considers the effusion of fluid an increased 

 secretion of the normal cerebro-spinal fluid : Scharlau thinks 

 the same is caused, not by increased effusion, but by diminish- 

 ed absorption : Vogt looks on the effusion of fluid as compar- 

 atively unimportant, and thinks hydrocephalus a process ana- 

 logous to the softening of the brain in adults, and which takes 

 place either in the brain itself or in the arachnoid ; but he con- 

 siders rammolissement, and also acute hydrocephalus as con- 

 sequences of a chronic process of inflammation, which he terms 

 liquescent, venous, or typhous ; he looks on rammolissement 

 as an organic maceration caused by previous changes of the firm 

 part and of the serum, from the effect of chronic inflammation. 

 Durand-Fardel declares the red softening to be always acute, 

 the white to be chronic. Eisenmann, on the other hand, 

 thinks the red discoloration is only a peculiarity of the first 

 stage of softening, which easily passes by. He lays down 

 four stages: — 1st, incipient softening, with redness of the 

 cerebral substance ; 2nd, the substance becomes pulpy, 

 the red colour passes into yellow, and disappears finally ; 3rd, 

 cavities form in the cerebral substance, filled with a milk- 

 like fluid, the cortical substance becomes a gray pulp ; 

 4th. cicatrization : on the surface, the yellow and at a later 

 period colourless flattened spots are the cicatrices, in the in- 

 terior, the fallen together walls of the cavities, after the ab- 

 sorption of their fluid contents. He considers inflamma- 

 tion to be the proximate cause, and that it produces a serous 

 effusion, which weakens the cerebral substance. Gluge con- 

 siders that rammolissement is in most cases of an inflam- 

 matory nature, as he found in the softened places inflamed 

 globules among the fragments of the cerebral tubules. Yet 

 these globules were also found just as much in other as in 

 inflammatory effusions, especially in effused and coagulated 

 blood. Probably they tire blood globules directly metamorphos- 

 ed, which are at first red, but latterly by some peculiar chemical 



