Pathological Anatomy (studies the morphological changes that occur in)

PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY studies the morphological changes that occur in the animal organism during its diseased state. In this regard, pathological anatomy examines both macroscopic changes accessible to the naked eye and histological changes requiring the use of a microscope (pathological histology, histopathology). The significance of pathological anatomy in medicine is extremely great; one can without exaggeration say that historically the development of correct concepts about the essence of a number of diseases has always been closely connected with the progress of pathological anatomy; in other words, the accumulation of factual material in the hands of pathologists and its development by them historically provided a solid materialist foundation for nosology and became the main factors in the gradual elimination of false, rationalist, often mystical teachings about the origin of diseases. And at the present time, pathological anatomy retains its importance as a fundamental subject in the system of medical disciplines. This can be noted not only in the sense that pathological anatomy continues to contribute to the progress of nosology and medicine in general with its data, but also with respect to the place of pathological anatomy in the system of teaching medical knowledge; here pathological anatomy plays a leading role in creating in students proper concepts about the essence of diseases; moreover, pathological anatomy has enormous practical significance in various hospital institutions, where it, represented in the form of prosector work (see below), controls the entire process of disease diagnosis and treatment of patients and contributes both to the improvement of medical personnel and to the improvement of hospital affairs. The historical development of pathological anatomy was first closely connected with the development of normal anatomy, since the method of autopsies, which gave rise to the correct concept of the normal structure of the animal body, simultaneously served as the source of the first pathological-anatomical observations. However, until the 18th century, these observations were very primitive, devoid of any system, and mainly concerned the description of various malformations and tumors; moreover, the explanations of the essence of the changes discovered were speculative and in most cases extremely absurd, as they were often influenced by various religious prejudices. Such a weak position of pathological anatomy during this period was largely due to the fact that autopsies were performed extremely rarely. Only from the time when autopsies began to be performed more regularly, rapid development of pathological anatomy occurred. Thus, at the end of the 18th century, the Italian Morgagni published a treatise on the localization and causes of diseases discovered by the anatomist ('De sedibus et causis morborum per anatomem indagatis libri V'. Venetia, 1761), in which, on the basis of a significant number of autopsies of patients who died from various diseases, he gave a more or less accurate description of the changes in organs during disease and explained from a pathological-anatomical point of view some of the disease symptoms; Morgagni's treatise, proclaiming the localization principle in the interpretation of diseases and laying the foundation for the so-called 'anatomical thinking' in medicine, indicated the path along which the further development of pathological anatomy should proceed in studying the essence of diseases. However, the next step forward in the development of pathological anatomy was made only 50 years later. The decisive moment that determined the growth and development of pathological anatomy during this period was the emergence of new industries - optical and chemical industry, which led to the application of microscopes, tissue dyes, etc. Using the microscope, the French scientist Bichat at the beginning of the 19th century gave a relatively good description of pathological-anatomical pictures, although due to the weak existing at that time concept of the normal microscopic structure of tissues, this description contains a large number of incorrect and primitive explanations of the essence of the described processes. A much more precise presentation of pathological-anatomical changes was presented in the 1830s by the Viennese scientist Rokitansky, who managed to give such a detailed description of pathological changes in organs during various diseases that it to a large extent corresponds to our modern knowledge of pathological-anatomical pictures. However, Rokitansky, as a prominent representative of humoral pathology, just like Bichat, gave a completely incorrect explanation of the essence of pathological processes and their causes, believing that the basis of all changes are primary violations in the composition of blood and body fluids, and the deposition of the latter in organs of pathological matter gives the pathological-anatomical changes in organs. The works of Rokitansky illustrated the state of pathology when the humoral explanation of pathological phenomena was already in clear contradiction with the factual material; therefore, the appearance of Virchow's 'cellular pathology' was historically understandable, which historically marked, as it were