Page:Structure and functions of the body; a hand-book of anatomy and physiology for nurses and others desiring a practical knowledge of the subject (IA structurefunctio00fiskrich).pdf/41

 its life for the health of the part. Thus a wound in the foot, if infected, may cause irritation and enlargement of the glands at the knee and in the groin.

The lymphatic glands are frequently the seat of tubercular infection, especially in the neck, and are enlarged in scarlet fever, tonsillitis, and diphtheria. In syphilis there is general glandular enlargement, and the glands in the groin become enlarged in all diseases of the genital organs. In malignant growths, such as cancer, the extension of the disease is often along the lines of the lymphatics.

Glands.—Of glands in general a word might now be spoken. They are of two kinds, excreting and secreting, and, when simple, are formed by the folding in of a free surface, as in the case of the salivary, gastric, and sebaceous glands, the cells at the gland becoming so modified as to be able to perform the function of excreting or secreting. In racemose glands the gland is broken up into many pockets. Excreting glands take from an organ or from a part substances which have outlived their usefulness and are to be cast out of the body, while the secreting glands form from the blood substances that did not exist in it before, but which are of use to the body, as the ptyalin of the saliva. A strict line cannot, however, be drawn between the two kinds of glands, most glands partaking more or less of both functions, though the sebaceous and sweat glands are probably purely excreting glands and the salivary glands are almost purely secreting. The glands, moreover, are more or less interchangeable in their functions, that is, they have vicarious function, and one gland can take up and do for another what that other is for some reason unable to do. In jaundice, where there is stoppage of the bile duct, the kidneys help out the liver by excreting the bile. If one kidney is removed the other does work for both, and the glands of the skin may help out the kidneys or vice versa. Hemorrhage from the lungs sometimes occurs in suppression of the menses.