ON ABSCESS. 
153 
feline tribe generally, it is still larger ; but in the dog it is most of 
all developed — it needs to be so with him on account of the acute- 
ness of scent which he possesses. It occupies nearly the whole of 
the superior cavity in the dog, and materially trenches on the situa- 
tion of the turbinated bones in other animals. 
ON ABSCESS. 
By Mr. PRITCHARD, of Wolverhampton. 
[Continued from page 103.] 
By the term symptomatic abscess, is meant, collections of matter 
in places situated at a distance from the part where the pus is ori- 
ginally formed. 
I have, in my former paper, considered abscesses whose forma- 
tion was confined to the primary seat of irritation ; but if the parts 
affected possess a lax cellular substance, through the areolar struc- 
ture of which the matter readily percolates, and, more particularly 
when the vital energy of the constitution, together with the vascular 
action, are inadequate to the formation of a barrier of coagulable 
lymph around the centre of the primary inflammation, fluctuating 
tumours are then occasionally developed at a distance from the 
seat of the original irritation, by the fluid proceeding gradually 
through the cellular tissue to the dependent situations adjoining, 
and infiltrating the reticular structure, and by degrees increasing 
to a collection of matter more or less distinct and fluctuating. 
We are furnished with instances of this species of abscess in 
injuries of the anterior spinous process of the os-innominatum, by 
the fluid travelling the course of the cellular membrane to the 
inside of the thigh — occasionally on the outside, but more frequently 
the former situation. It is likewise observable in diseases of the 
spinous processes of the withers and back. Tumours of pus are 
produced by this source of accumulation, in front of the pectoral 
muscles, or in the axilla ; and I have also found abscesses under- 
neath the pleura, by an infiltration of the cellular tissue beneath, 
or at, or near the inferior cartilages of the ribs, having an origin in 
disease of the dorsal vertebrae. 
In abscesses symptomatic of diseases of the bones or cartilages, 
the matter produced is commonly of a greyish colour, thin, contain- 
ing flocculi of albuminous substance, portions of phosphate of lime, 
and, sometimes, small minute coagula of blood. The characteristic 
fcetor exhaled by this kind of pus is not observed : it is not present 
until the cavity has been opened, and the fluid acted upon by the 
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