the nail structure and destruction. The disease is amenable to treatment. A new nail is generally reproduced in the process of

recovery.

DISEASES OF THE CELLULAR TISSUE.

Inflammation. The cellular tissue is often the seat of inflammation and of changes, connected with the inflammatory process, ending in the formation of purulent matter in a circumscribed forin, abscess. Such inflammation is apt to follow under circumstances in which the skin is wounded, and in which the wound extends into the cellular structure. It also occurs from internal injuries, and from extension of inflammatory disease into the membranous cellular tissue. In deep-seated boils and abscesses, generally, there is extension of the inflammatory mischief into the cellular membrane.

Inflammatory induration, or hardening of the cellular structure in the newly born, is another disease of this structure, of which I have narrated several instances in my essay on "Diseases of the Foetus in Utero." In these instances the surface of the body is rendered in parts hard and inflexible. Sometimes even the whole surface of the body is involved in the induration.

Slough or Phlegmon is another disease of the cellular tissue consequent on acute inflammation, and extending from the surfaces over or underlying the cellular layer. In erysipelas the inflamination may extend in this way, and rapidly involve large tracts of the cellular tissue, phlegmonous erysipelas.

Carbuncle or Anthrax is another special inflammatory affection in which the cellular tissue is involved. The inflammation is usually limited or circumscribed, and ends in the formation of pus or matter, which, after great swelling, tension, and redness, breaks through the skin in a number of small percolations, unless it be relieved by operation. The cellular tissue is involved, in like manner, in the disease called malignant pustule.

Obesity. The laying up of fat in the cellular tissue beneath the skin and other membranes that are connected with the cellular structure becomes, when the fat is in great excess, an actual disease called obesity. Obesity is fertile of many mischiefs. It makes the body altogether pendulous, heavy, and cumbersome; it loads the intestines and interferes with their functional activity; and, when it surrounds the heart it very seriously impedes the

action of that organ. No mistake is more commonly made and no mistake is greater than that of accepting the external evidence of a free deposit of fat in the cellular tissue beneath the skin as a sign of robust health.

Emphysema. When air or other gas finds its way, as it sometimes does, into the cellular tissue, and diffuses through it, the disease called emphysema is produced. Emphysema may occur from a wound in the cellular tissue, as when the end of a broken rib pierces it, and I have once seen the whole of the cellular tissue beneath the skin injected with air, as it is injected in the carcass of the dead animal when the butcher inserts a knife into it, and distends it by his breath. Emphysema may be present in any part where there is connective tissue. It is often present in the lungs.

Anasarca.-When water exudes in the cellular tissue beneath the skin, the form of dropsy called anasarca is produced. In anasarca the surface over the affected part becomes spongy, and "pits," on pressure, like dough.

Lastly, the cellular tissue is a common seat of simple tumors. It may, also, be the seat of hemorrhagic effusions, of parasitic cysts, and of cancerous growths.

COOPER MEDICAL COLLE,

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL

and is not to be removed, from the Library Res by ey person or under any pretext whe 'ever.

BOOK I.

PART THE THIRD.

DISEASES FROM NATURAL ACCIDENTS.

CHAPTER I.

DISEASES FROM NATURAL ACCIDENTS.

THE history of natural disease would not be complete were reference not made to certain accidents to which the human kind is subjected. These may be divided into four classes. I. Accidents which are purely mechanical. II. Accidents which arise from poisonous substances developed within the body. III. Accidents from venomous organic substances. IV. Diseases from animal or vegetable substances, taken as foods. V. Accidents in the female, connected with pregnancy and labor.

DISEASES FROM MECHANICAL NATURAL ACCIDENTS. LIGHTNING SHOCK.

Primary effects.-The passage of lightning through the body may produce varied phenomena, from mere temporary shock, to shock with insensibility, and to shock that is fatal either at the moment or shortly afterwards. These phenomena may or may not be attended with marks of distortion or external injury. The fatality is in proportion to the intensity of the shock, and those discharges which by their intensity kill most readily, may leave least mark of distortion or external injury. In cases where the lightning shock has produced instantaneous insensibility, followed by recovery, the stricken persons have been, in some cases, altogether unconscious of receipt of injury. It may be inferred, therefore, that instant death by lightning is, as Franklin taught, the most painless of all deaths.

The injuries inflicted by the shock are internal and external. In my observations on animals killed by electrical lightning shock, I discovered that the course of the discharge through the body was, preferentially, by the blood, and that coagulation of the blood, general rigidity of the muscles, and decomposition of the tissues were the three proofs of death.