Adenitis

Adenitis (Gr. adēn, 'a gland'), and ANGEIOLEUCITIS (Gr. angeion, 'a vessel,' leukos, 'white'), are the terms employed in medicine to indicate inflammation of the lymphatic glands and inflammation of the lymphatic vessels respectively. In most instances of inflammation in the absorbent or lymphatic system, the vessels and glands are simultaneously involved. Although there is plenty of evidence, from the examination of the dead body, that inflammation of the lymphatics may occur internally, it is only observed in the living subject in connection with the skin or an ulcerated surface, and is most common in the arm, as the hand is the part most exposed to injury and irritation. The disease usually originates in an open wound of almost any form, as a puncture, a cut, or a blister. This wound is directly infected by some morbid matter, as, for example, some local inflammatory product, such as the putrid secretion of a sore; but more commonly by some irritating or poisonous matter from without. The inflammation that is thus set up in the lymphatics always extends towards the trunk, never in the opposite direction. The degree of inflammation of the gland may vary from the slight enlargement with tenderness on pressure, to profuse suppuration. The suppuration may not take place till a week or more after the inflammation of the vessels has subsided, and may excite no rigors or other constitutional symptoms; and a patient may be quite unconscious that there is anything serious the matter with him, when half a pint or more of matter may be collecting in and around a gland in the armpit. The constitutional symptoms attending an attack of acute inflammation of the lymphatic vessels (angeioleucitis) are often severe.