Mucous Membrane

The condition in which mucus, a secretion of mucous membranes lining the inside surfaces of organs, is produced in excess and accumulates in greater than normal amounts is referred to as mucoid degeneration. Major causes of this condition include chronic irritation of mucous membranes and certain mucus-producing tumours. Abnormal amounts of glycogen, which is the principal storage carbohydrate of animals, may occur in the liver as a result of certain inherited diseases of animals; the condition is known as glycogen infiltration. The abnormal deposition of calcium salts, which is known as hypercalcification, may occur as a result of several diseases involving the blood vessels and the heart, the urinary system, the gallbladder, and the bonelike tissue called cartilage. Pigments from coal dust or asbestos dust may infiltrate the lungs of certain dogs in two types of lung disease: anthracosis and asbestosis. Abnormal amounts of iron-containing coloured molecules resulting from the breakdown of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein of red blood cells, are often deposited in the liver and the spleen after diseases that involve excessive breakdown of red blood cells. A dark-coloured molecule occurs abnormally in the livers of certain sheep suffering from Dubin–Johnson syndrome and in certain tumours called melanomas. Uric acid infiltration, which occurs in poultry, is characterized by the deposition of uric acid salts.