There is hardly any part of the body in which cellular tissue is not to be found ; and consequently nearly all the tissues may be influenced by its softened state. The effusion of fluids into the areolm of the cellular tissue, may follow inflammatory action or may be produced from a malignant or typhoid state of system, and from post mortem causes.
The colour of the softened membrane de pends upon the nature of the effused fluid.
Induration of cellular tissue is generally caused by the effusion, and subsequent contraction and hardening of coagulable lymph ; or the simple effusion may produce hardening, as in the immediate vicinity of old ulcers. How ever, it is notorious that even in this case con traction and consolidation occur at a little distance from the seat of irritation ; in certain skin diseases, and in the cicatrices following burns, great injury may be effected by the contracting power of the effused lymph.
But it is behind mucous and serous, or sero fibrous niembranes, that induration from in flammatory action principally occurs, and leads to effects, most noxious to the general economy ; strictures of the gullet, pylorus, in testines, and urethra, depend upon the sub mucous or subserous effusion and consoli dation of lymph.
A hardened state of the mammary gland depends upon the same cause. Dense, crisp cutting consolidations of cellular tissue, are frequently mistaken for scirrhus, and, indeed, are frequently the seat of morbid growths.
Induration of the cellular tissue may de ,pend upon a perverted state of the general nutrition ; in syphilis, for example, there is frequently subperlosteal effusion of lymph, which has a tendency to ossify. It is also very frequently brought about, and becomes cartilaginous in hardness, by long continued local irritation. We notice the indurated state of the tissue around scrofulous glands, and its condensed form around miliary tu bercles. The disease, which has been termed hardening of the cellular tissue, occurs in infants. The subjects of this disease are, for
the most part, feeble, sometimes imperfectly developed, and generally born before the full period. It is a disease seen, for the most part, in hospitals, and is found where filth, bad ventilation, and worse food abound ; con sisting, in a wax-like hardness of the sub cutaneous cellular tissue, and is produced by the effusion of a sero-albuminous fluid into its meshes. This effusion produces swelling of the affected parts, as well as hardening ; and occurs, first of all, in the inferior extremities, passes from the feet upwards, and subse quently attacks the hands, arms, and then the trunk itself.
The hardened limbs are dry, cold, and may or may not pit on pressure ; their colour is either unchanged, or has a dull yellow or a lived hue. Symptoms of obstructed respira tion supervene before death.
When a section of an affected limb is made, and the subcutaneous cellular tissue is well exposed, we find its cellular appearance much increased, from the interstices being filled with a fluid, which is either limpid, or more concrete, and of a citron colour, or tinged with blood. The quantity of this fluid de termines the degree and amount of induration ; and occasionally the fatty structure beneath the skin is hardened from the compressing in fluence of the effusion.
It is very doubtful if the effused fluid be comes wholly concrete. , Chevreul says, that the serum of the blood, in infants affected with hardening of the subcutaneous cellular tissue, contains a large quantity- of a spontaneously coagulable matter, analogous to that which is effused into the affected tissue. Great and general venous congestion is always found in these cases, and would seem to depend on in sufficient vital energy, produced by the de pressing influences of damp, bad nourishment, and cold.
For some particulars respecting the Soften ing and Induration of " Growths," see article on ADVENTITIOUS PRODUCTS.
(P. Martin Duncan.)