slightest trace of the original structure could be found in any part of the organ, its place being occupied by the morbid material above mentioned. This presented no great peculiarities, but resembled the product of degenerated lymph or inflammatory matters, as seen in various other parts of the body. The two substances of which it was composed differed, in the one being firmer and tougher and slightly more transparent than the other, and thus by the microscope presented a few delicate fibres, amongst which were found cells or nuclei of all sizes and shapes. The yellow, more friable matter was composed of irregularly formed cells of the same kind, many fatty granular molecules, and a refracting amorphous material, which was partly an organic albuminous substance and partly saline, soluble by acetic acid. It appeared, thus, as if the original adventitious matter had been a fibro-nucleated structure, but which had degenerated into broken-up cells, granules, fat, amorphous albuminous matter, and crystalline forms. It presented no peculiarity over the degenerate lymph found in various other organs. This change is one to which the supra-renal body seems subject, for in this new branch of pathological inquiry several examples have been already noticed. They are, in the first place, the first three of Dr. Addison’s cases, the case published by Dr. Gull,¹ &c. All these instances were more or less alike, differing only in the degree of consistency and the amount of earthy or mineral degeneration which the organs had undergone. The general term strumous was at first applied to this disease, but there is no other reason for the designation than the resemblance which the morbid matter has to strumous matter. A very similar substance is found in various organs to which the latter term is still with little reason applied, as the yellow amorphous masses seen in the lymphatic glands, and very frequently in the testes, placenta, and other structures. In the testes such masses of degenerate lymph are constantly found in the midst of carcinomatous disease, which, under other circumstances, would be called strumous.

“In the case of supra-renal disease to which we have alluded there has been no evidence of constitutional tuberculous affection ; and thus it would appear that these bodies are subject to their own peculiar malady, but whether this be allied to an ordinary inflammatory condition, accompanied by an effusion of lymph and subsequent degeneration, or other morbid change, still further investigation. The fact of the two organs being simultaneously affected, while other parts of the body are healthy, is an evidence of their importance in the system.”