Lectures : chiefly clinical / by Thomas King Chambers.

  • Thomas King Chambers
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures : chiefly clinical / by Thomas King Chambers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/666 (page 7)
    excess of vital action/^ is a contradictioii in terms. There cannot be too active a metamorphosis of the tissues into their complete form^ for the fresher their organic constituents^ the more serviceable they are_, and the longer duration they have before them. There cannot be too close an adherence to that typical form which it is the business of metamorphosis to keep up^ any more than there can be too exact an obedience to law and order. The most active metamorphosis of the body possible, the highest possible development of life in every part, is Health. The complete cessation of metamorphosis is Death. The partial cessation, or the exhibition of materials in an incomplete form, however copious they may be, is Disease. In death the flesh goes on being decomposed as during life; but not being renewed, the form is lost entirely. In disease, decomposition goes on, but renewal flags, the incomplete tissues are retained as part of the imperfect body—a sort of death in life^^—and are rightly termed by the pathologist degenerate.^'' They are generated, but not re-generated j they are generated in an inferior mould of form. Take as an example what happens sometimes to voluntary contractile fibre. We all know that if an animaFs limbs are duly employed, the muscles keep up their shape and their vigorous power of contraction; their flesh is of a rich bright red colour when the animal is fully grown, and is firm and elastic. Examine it under a microscope, and you find it made up of even parallel fibres, each fibre seeming to be engraved over with delicate equidistant cross-markings, like a measuring- tape very minutely divided. The more the muscle has been used in a well-nourished frame, the more closely it conforms to the typical specimen of the physiologist : Use, use is life; and he most truly lives Who uses best. But suppose this muscular fibre has been unworked—suppose it is in the biceps of an Indian fakeer, who has fastened his arm upright till it has become motionless, or in the gluteus of a soldier^s amputated leg, or the calf of a Chinese belle, or in a paralysed limb—then the flesh is quite diff'erent in aspect; it is flabby and inelastic, of a pale yellowish hue, and makes greasy