Deer Horn

DEER HORN (Cornu Cervi), pieces of antler from the red deer Cervus elaphus L. (family Cervinae). Antlers are present only in males. The constituent parts in rounded average figures are as follows: adhesive substances 25%, calcium phosphate 50%, calcium carbonate 15%, water 10%, and a small amount of other insoluble substances. For medical purposes, scraped deer horn is used in two types of grinding: heavy brown shavings (Cornu Cervi raspatum), used for preparing decoctions, and lighter and whiter shavings (Cornu Cervi tornatum), used for mixing with herbal mixtures (species). Deer horn is currently used very rarely in medical practice; it is included only in two pharmacopoeias: Spanish and Portuguese. Deer horn was once used as an inexpensive material for obtaining gelatin, but after the appearance on the market of almost colorless gelatin obtained from bones and skin waste of other animals, deer horn lost its value in this regard. In China, deer antlers of the maral are still used (see Maral Horns). Deer horn oil (Oleum Cornu Cervi), or burnt animal oil (Oleum animale foetidum or crudum), was previously obtained by dry distillation of deer horn, but is now a by-product of the dry distillation of bones, cartilage, skin, glue, wool, hair, and other nitrogen-containing organic substances. Deer horn oil is a brown-black thick turbid liquid of repulsive odor and taste; it is lighter than water and partially soluble in it; it is soluble in three parts of alcohol with an alkaline reaction; it should not be too thick or contain water, which separates at the bottom on standing. Composition: ammonium salts, amino bases of the methane series, nitriles of fatty acids, pyrrole and its homologs, pyridine, quinoline bases, aromatic and other hydrocarbons. It is used in veterinary practice for lubricating wounds as a disinfectant and insecticide. By pouring deer horn oil into burrows, rats can be driven out. By distillation from deer horn oil, animal essential oil is obtained, which is shaken with 4 parts of water and distilled again; the thus purified animal essential oil (Oleum Cornu Cervi rectificatum, or Oleum animale Dippelii) is a colorless or yellowish liquid of a characteristic sharp odor, specific gravity 0.750-0.850, with a weakly alkaline reaction; with 80 parts of water this oil gives a clear solution, mixes in all proportions with 96% alcohol, ether, and fatty oils. Under the influence of air and light, the oil thickens and darkens, which is why it should be stored in the dark, in small dark bottles filled to the top. It consists of a mixture of nitriles of lower fatty acids with pyrrole, methyl-pyrrole, quinoline and pyridine bases. Occasionally used internally for hysteria and some nervous diseases without sufficient pharmacodynamic justification. Doses: 0.25-1.0 g two to three times a day. In addition to the V German Pharmacopoeia, a preparation of this oil has been preserved: Ammonium carbonicum pyrooleosum, representing a mixture of 1 part Olei animalis rectificati with 32 parts Ammonii carbonici. Lat.-see lit. to the article Maral Horns. N. Kornilov. OLEOGRANULOMA (from oleum-oil and granuloma-granulational tumor) (synonyms: lipogranuloma, fatty granuloma, German Fettgranulome, lipophage Granulome, French granulome lipophagique), a term introduced in 1914 by Henschen in relation to inflammatory granulational growths that occur as a reaction to the presence of oily substance in tissue. Such oily substance may have an exogenous origin and end up in the tissue as a result of its injection under the skin, or it may have an endogenous origin and be a product of the breakdown of the body's fatty tissue, as a result of which fat or fat released from fat cells or fat breaking down inside dead fat cells in case of necrosis of fatty tissue is the cause of the granulational reaction. Abricosov, from an etiological point of view, divides all O. into the following four groups: 1. Artificial, or injection O., developing as a result of the injection of oily substance under the skin, e.g., camphor oil, which, remaining in the subcutaneous tissue, causes an inflammatory reaction. Some call this type of O. oleoma. Close to them are paraffinomas (see). 2. Traumatic O., resulting from traumatic disruption of the integrity of fatty tissue with the release of fat from fat cells and its subsequent breakdown. Traumas that result in the formation of O. can be very diverse. In the subcutaneous tissue, such O. can form as a result of a blow, bruise from a fall, compression and crushing of a part of the body, unskillful, too vigorous massage; in newborns, scattered O. of the skin are sometimes found as a result of trauma during childbirth. Traumatic O. are sometimes observed in women in the pelvic tissue as a result of birth trauma; they are often found in the omentum as a result of its incarceration in a hernia, in adhesions in the abdominal cavity or as a result of other injuries. Traumatic O. can also form as a result of damage to fatty tissue from injections of ergot, morphine, digalen, physiological solution, etc. Experimentally, traumatic O. have been obtained in animals by vigorous crushing of the skin or energetic injection of physiological solution. 3. Peri-inflammatory O. are observed when the inflammatory process spreads to fatty tissue, destroying fat cells; this can occur in the mammary gland in mastitis, in the perirenal fat in perinephritis, in tuberculous and gummous lesions involving fatty tissue. 4. Spontaneous O. appear without any definite local causes; they are most often observed in the skin, but can occur in any fatty tissue, e.g., in fatty bone marrow, in the mesentery, perirenal tissue, etc. The most well-known are spontaneous O. of the skin. They often appear in persons who have had a severe infectious disease, most often typhus, but can also develop without this in persons who were previously completely healthy. As the study of spontaneous O. in different periods of their formation (Garshin, Abricosov, Lecene, Moulounguet and others) shows, their basis is focal necrosis of fatty tissue with subsequent breakdown and saponification of dead fat and development of inflammatory granulational reaction. In these cases, necrosis of fatty tissue is a consequence of vascular ischemia; in some cases, it is possible to think of organic vascular lesions (embolism, thrombosis, arteriosclerosis), while in others, the basis of the ischemia that causes fat necrosis is apparently vasomotor angiospasm. Cohen observed the development of O. after the action of cold on the skin (prolonged application of ice). The clinical picture of O. of the skin comes down to the appearance of a painful swelling with redness of the skin over it; the swelling can be diffuse or it can be a group of small nodules, sometimes individual nodules. The localization of injection, traumatic and peri-inflammatory O. corresponds to the site of injection, trauma, inflammatory process; spontaneous O. can occur in various parts of the body, but most often appear on the limbs, especially in the shoulder and pelvic girdle areas, sometimes simultaneously in symmetrical places on the right and left sides. In relation to spontaneous O., cases of periodic appearance of nodules, sometimes symmetrical, have been described. Microscopic examination of O. reveals the proliferation of granulation tissue from epithelioid elements with giant cells, among which are seen partly small cavities filled with fat, partly larger cysts containing either fat or serous fluid replacing the absorbed fat [see separate table (art. 439-440), fig. 3]. In some cases, the granulation tissue contains many foamy pseudoxanthoma cells; instead of round cavities with liquid fat, lumpy masses of saponified fat and crystals of fatty acids are often seen. Sometimes O., containing little fat, can give a histological picture very similar to tuberculosis. In late stages, fibrous transformation of granulation tissue with obliteration of fat cavities is found in O., or the latter remain for a long time in the form of cysts filled with serous fluid. Petrification of O. and its transformation into a lump or several lumps of lime, encapsulated in connective tissue, is often observed. The treatment of O. can be different: usually the swelling or nodule disappears over time, leaving behind only a small tissue thickening, in other cases O. turns into a stony formation; finally there are cases of progressive growth of O., resembling the growth of a malignant tumor; the course of the latter kind is explained partly by the diffusion of fat breakdown products (fatty acids) and lipase from the O. area into the adjacent fatty tissue, which acts destructively on the latter, partly it may be that the initial inflammatory process destroys the adjacent fatty tissue, which is the reason for the expansion of the zone of inflammation. Similar changes to O. are observed in some skin diseases of the tuberculid type, such as: in Darier's sarcoid and in Bazin's erythema induratum.

In addition, a similar change to that in O. can occur in the tissue surrounding an atheroma or dermoid cyst when their fatty contents enter the surrounding tissue. --Treatment--see Paraffinoma.