Disease and Its CausesCouncilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Science
Disease and Its Causes
Councilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--A SECTION OF THE SKIN. 1. A hair. Notice there
is a deep depression of the surface to form a small bulb from which
the hair grows. 2. The superficial or horny layer of the skin; the
cells here are joined to form a dense, smooth, compact layer
impervious to moisture. 3. The lower layer of cells. In this layer new
cells are continually being formed to supply those which as thin
scales are cast off from the surface. 4. Section of a small vein. 9.
Section of an artery. 8. Section of a lymphatic. The magnification is
too low to show the smaller blood vessels. 5. One of the glands
alongside of the hair which furnishes an oily secretion. 6. A sweat
gland. 7. The fat of the skin. Notice that hair, hair glands and sweat
glands are continuous with the surface and represent a downward
extension of this. All the tissue below 2 and 3 is the corium from
which leather is made.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--DIAGRAMMATIC SECTION OF A SURFACE SHOWING THE
RELATION OF GLANDS TO THE SURFACE. (_a_) Simple or tubular gland,
(_b_) compound or racemose gland.]
All of the causes of disease act on the body from without, and it is
important to understand the relations which the body of a highly
developed organism such as man has with the world external to him.
This relation is effected by means of the various surfaces of the
body. On the outside is the skin [Fig. 3], which surface is many times
increased by the existence of glands and such appendages to the skin
as the hair and nails. A gland, however complicated its structure, is
nothing more than an extension of the surface into the tissue beneath
[Fig. 4]. In the course of embryonic development all glands are formed
by an ingrowth of the surface. The cells which line the gland surface
undergo a differentiation in structure which enables them to perform
certain definite functions, to take up substances from the same source
of supply and transform them. The largest gland on the external
surface of the body is the mammary gland [Fig. 5] in which milk is
produced; there are two million small, tubular glands, the sweat
glands, which produce a watery fluid which serves the purpose of
cooling the body by evaporation; there are glands at the openings of
the hairs which produce a fatty secretion which lubricates the hair
and prevents drying, and many others.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--A SECTION OF THE MAMMARY GLAND. (_a_) The
ducts of the gland, by which the milk secreted by the cells which line
all the small openings, is conveyed to the nipple. All these openings
are continuous with the surface of the skin. On each side of the large
ducts is a vein filled with blood corpuscles.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--PHOTOGRAPH OF A SECTION OF THE LUNG OF A MOUSE.
_x x_ are the air tubes or bronchi which communicate with all of
the small spaces. On the walls of the partitions there is a close
network of blood vessels which are separated from the air in the
spaces by a thin membrane.]
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