Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... are rare, and are most distinct in the large vascular processes." In children these epiphyses are in a condition that approximates hyperaemia; and in that peculiar state which predisposes to chronic joint disease it would seem that their true physiological function was sluggishly performed. I cannot do better in this connection than to quote from Mr. Barwell's excellent treatise on " Diseases of the " The truth is, that the nutritive activity brought about by the ossifying action in the epiphysis, is very apt to pro 1 joints: ' duce a congested condition of the part; and the large bone ends which are found in strumous children are the accompaniment of such tendency to congestion. 'As the child gets older and stronger, this hyperaemia disappears, and in the great majority of instances is followed by no evil results whatever. It is, however, certain that in a given number' of cases the congestion predisposes to inflammatiion and the merely passive is followed by an active condition. Thus inflam Manual of Human'Histo1ogy, Syd. Ed. Vol. 1, p. 335. mation may be set up in an epiphyseal end which was previously in an abnormal state, and such in the greater number of cases is the mode in which the disease now under consideration (strumous articular osteitis) commences. All such attacks are in the beginning very slow, and hang for months, perhaps even years, between a state merely of sluggish functional performance and of active disease.' My clinical experience fully sustains this last sentence, and indeed, the entire quotation. 'When this " sluggish 1 functional performance, ' the initial stage of chronic articular osteitis, terminates in "active disease," the...