Consistence [the normal degree of mutual cohesion and of resisting power pertaining to the elements constituting a texture] is either augmented or diminished. In either case the gradations and also the forms vary greatly, cannot he estimated hut in relation to the amount of mechanical violence exerted, and exist, to a certain extent, in combination with each other.

Diminution Of Consistence

Diminution Of Consistence is based upon -

1. Loosening of the mutual cohesion between the form-elements composing a texture, through the interposition of a fluid or solidified substance. Instances are afforded in the loosening of texture through serous effusion (dropsy), and, in hyperaemia and inflammation, through their products. Such loosening of texture is generally considerable in proportion to the rapidity with which the said products form.

2. Atrophy, both primary and secondary, provided the density of the texture be diminished.

3. Liquefaction and breaking down of the elementary forms of the texture, as in suppuration, in gangrene, but most especially and most variously in liquid exudation from mucous membranes, which by its chemical properties proves destructive to the underlayer. Liquefaction of the substance of the liver, through anomalous or intercepted bile, offers another instance in point.

4. Next to these rank the softenings of certain organs, particularly of the mucous membrane lining the stomach, of the lungs, and of the brain, brought about by the resolvent agency upon the textures of a free acid. They represent those processes to which, in conjunction, perhaps, with the foregoing, the term softening ought properly to be restricted.

The abstraction of earthy salts from the bones, in rickets and osteomalacia, belongs to this class.

5. It is brought about by a transformation of textures, the nature of which is most probably a breaking up, with conversion of the chemical constituents; - for example, the breaking up of the primitive muscular fibrils, or of the texture of the annulo-fibrous tunic of the arteries, in fatty degeneration.

Diminished consistency manifests itself as irregular softening, compressibility, lacerability, maceration, liquefaction, and solution; or else as pulpiness, putrescence, friability, fragility - the latter property being frequent in the osseous system, in muscles, and in the annulo-fibrous tunic of the arteries.

Increase Of Consistence Varies

Increase Of Consistence Varies, in like manner, as to its character and cause. It is based -

1. Upon diminution of the humecting plasma, by which the texture is pervaded (water).

2. Upon Hypertrophy

Those augmentations of consistence are particularly marked which depend upon true hypertrophy without increase of volume, and upon various kinds of spurious hypertrophy.

3. Upon atrophy, the reduction of volume being here accompanied by condensation, - concentrical hypertrophy, - of the brain, for instance.

4. Upon inflammation, - through the solidification and textural transformation of coagulable products; - in other words, by the issue of the inflammation in induration.

5. Upon what is termed ossification, so common in the aforesaid products of inflammation.

Increase of consistence manifests itself as preternatural toughness, hardness, rigidity. Relatively to the normal condition of the textures, it often appears less in the shape of absolute increase, than of a change in the character of the consistence. Thus the friable liver, the kidneys, under certain conditions, in spanaemia, for example, toughen through defibrination of the sanguineous fluid. The increase of consistence is often, moreover, but a seeming one, and even such only with certain restrictions. Thus the organ concerned will exercise, against ordinary external influences, a resistance exceeding the natural, and yet be powerless against more forcible impressions, because, although with increased density it has become harder and firmer, it has at the same time lost its toughness, and become morbidly fragile and brittle. Muscle affords an example.