On diseases which affect corresponding parts of the body in a symmetrical manner / by William Budd.

  • Budd, William, 1811-1880.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diseases which affect corresponding parts of the body in a symmetrical manner / by William Budd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    or a miniature of it; the pattern of an eruption on one limb is more or less reduced in the other; the atheromatous spots in the arteries of one side are smaller than corresponding spots in those of the other. (Bizot.) And, in this, we apparently have indication of that want of absolute symmetry be- tween the two sides of the body, which anatomists have already been led to infer from other considera- tions, so that this very fact, the want, namely, of absolute symmetry in the lesions belonging to these diseases, which might at first view seem a defect, and as tending in some measure to invalidate the law, is probably one of its most interesting exemplifications. Anatomists had already arrived at the knowledge of these analogies of symmetry and organic compo- sition, by considerations grounded on outward form, and number of parts, but, here, we not only have their reality shown, by a more searching and inward proof, but their degrees accurately measured, as it were, by a delicate molecular test;—and, in this point of view, these diseases are remarkably inter- esting. In this quality, they clearly show also, that the intimate composition of one and the same structure, as of the skin, for example, may differ, materially, in different regions; and from this, again, it follows that the affinity of any given morbid matter for this structure need not be equally elective in all these regions ; so that while, in some, the lesions may be distributed with the most perfect symmetry, in others it may be much less distinctly defined.