The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-26
 SIGNIFICANCE OF GANGRENE.
An Interesting Discussion of a Dis
 agreeable Subject

An Interesting Discussion of Dis
 agreeable Subject.
 Since the autopsy on the body of the
 late president gangrene has become a | familiar expression to all classes of peo-
 ple. While it's general signfication is 1 well understood, it's technical meaning
 for medical men and it's limitations in
 the light of recent advances in sur
 gery and especially in bacteriology, are
 not popularly realized. Gangrene, is | the oldest pathology of it's Greek root
 to eat. or gnaw, and referred to any
 process that caused destruction of tis-
 sue. Of late the term gangrene has
 been limited to diseased conditions in
 which local death of tissue took place l without, the liquefying process that | constitutes the formation of pus.
 | Medical observers have come to real
 ize that pus formation is really con-
 servative operation on the part of na- ture. The material that is thus thrown
 off contains irritants, whose retention
 would surely prove dangerous The
 reaction that produces pus is not mere ly local. It is not the issues alone in
 the immediate vicinity of the irritated
 part that share in the conservative pus
 formation. Most of the cells in purulent
 material are white cells from the blood
 These white cells are the body's great
 defenders against microbic invasion.
 Whenever microbes of any kind gain
 an entrance into the body these white
 cells are attracted from all parts of
 the circulatory system, and begin to
 accumulate near the irritated part.
 When the white cells arrive where the
 circulation, because of the irritants present, is somewhat slowed, they make
 their way through the blood vessel
 walls. Still retaining their vital activ- ity they englobe microbes, or bits of broken-down tissue, that may be pres
 ent and proceed to digest them. If the irritant material be virulent poison, as for instance al lying germ, the white cells are killed by 1t and. martyrs to duty. are thrown off as the so-called pus cells, carrying the irritants with them. however, and thus sparing the system that much annoyance.
 The story of these white cells reads like fairy tale, but is literally true. Every part of the human system re- acts to help dispose of the invading cells that threaten destruction of any portion. Therefore 1t Is that even the healing of small localized wounds depends on the genral condition of health of the individually, Therefore some persons tissues are, in the old suggestive phraseology, more healing" than others. Therefore too, a man run down by overwork and worry or by some serious physician ailment, is much less able to resist the inyas'o1 of microbes Many physician has learnt the sad lesson by practical experience [ Some slight wound becomes infected at a moment when be Is overworn, and the result is that complete failure of stemat tic resistance we know as blood poisoning.
 Reaction is a vital manifestation, Where 1t occurs there is pus, but no Gangrene Is death. If the blood supply of tissues is cut off they lie because deprived of nourishment Ter blocking of an artery causes gam yrene and this will be intensified by he fact that, as no white blood cells Ire carried to the part, natures protec- i've mechanism Is shut out and mi robes will be unhampered in their in- rasion of tte tissues. Gangrene may rise from the blocking of vein, for blood must be in circulation to supply issues with nutrition, and must be onstantly renewed itself in the large l rgans Disturbances of blood vessels re the most potent factors in the pro- uction of gangrene Hence it's most | reduent occurrence in old people, 8 ,hose blood vessels are thickened, thus sssening their callber, and consequent s v the amount of blood carried. The r Internal coats of the blood vessels in Id people are also roughened, and so | lotting and interruption of the blood | tream easily takes place. "A man is S old as his arteries" means that ! ven comparatively young men may s ave old arteries. Men of forty or flf- t V years of age often have the arteries V f seventy. Such serious conditions as V iabetes and Brlght's disease often ause the aging of arteries before their : me, and SO make, as every surgeon a -ell knows, patients of middle age lia- le to gangrene of tissues that is eally senile in character. a Besides blood vessels, nerves have a p over over the nutrition of tissues. W mall nerves control the size of the W bod vessels within certain limits, U nd so regulate circulation. How a owerful nervous influences over blood lpply may be, those who blush easily U ave good cause to know There is at d asst one form of gangrene due entirely W , nervous disturbance. This is the r gangrene that at times s' luses the loss of fingers or toes on a 1th sides of the body. Nervous in- g lences go shut up small blood vessels a
 this affection that death of the tis- ic les results. Any interference with the D erves that are distributed to blood a .ssels is likely to cause serious inter- u renee with the circulation of part, W The life of tissues then, is dependent tc the healthiness of the blood vessels to ading to them. and on the nervous T echanism that controls their blood tf pply. The problem of the cause of al .ngrene is never simple. Nearly al- pt avs it Is the invasion of micro-organ~ ee ns that causes tie final conclusion of SC