Lectures on the germs and vestiges of disease : and on the prevention of the invasion and fatality of disease by periodical examinations : delivered at the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Chest / by Horace Dobell.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the germs and vestiges of disease : and on the prevention of the invasion and fatality of disease by periodical examinations : delivered at the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Chest / by Horace Dobell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    GERMS AND VESTIGES OF DISEASE. repair and preservation of which, is the immediate study of our profession. Among the numerous facts which might be cited, illustrating repair in man, I will select a few from which we may learn the direction in which the V.M.F. is especially determined. I am not aware of any instance on record, in which a complete limb has been reproduced in man. But I think we may conclude from some facts before us, that this want of reproduction of limbs comes from no poverty in the V.M.F. necessary to produce them, were it in the plan of our creation—were it a condition of our existence—that they should be so reproduced. Speaking of the power of true reproduction after injury, Dr. Carpenter says :— “ Its operations are frequently most remarkable; and are in no instance perhaps more strikingly displayed than in the re-formation of a whole bone, when the original one has been destroyed by disease. The new bony matter is thrown out, sometimes within and sometimes around the dead shaft; and when the latter has been removed, the new structure gradually assumes the regular form, and all the attachments of muscles, ligaments, etc., become as complete as before.”—(Principles of Physiology, Com- parative and General. 3rd edition. 1857. p. 8/2.) Now, what are the principal constituents of a limb ? Bones, tendons, muscles, nerves, bloodvessels, lympha- tics, skin and its appendages. Of these, we have already seen that the bones can be reproduced. I need hardly tell you that tendons, nerves, bloodvessels, lymphatics, and cellular tissue, are among the parts most truly repro- duced in man. Of this, we have the testimony of Mr. Paget, in his incomparable “ Lectures on Surgical Pa- thology ” (p. 164, vol. i.) ; and of the reproduction of skin, Mr. Paget says (p. 287), “ Its fibro-cellular and elastic tissues, its papillae and epidermis are all well- formed.” Out of the important constituents of a limb in man,