Sketch of the life and character of Dr. Abercrombie : read before the Harveian Society of Edinburgh, at the annual festival, April 12, 1854 / by Douglas Maclagan, M.D.

  • Maclagan, Douglas, Sir, 1812-1900.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sketch of the life and character of Dr. Abercrombie : read before the Harveian Society of Edinburgh, at the annual festival, April 12, 1854 / by Douglas Maclagan, M.D. 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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    we boast of being very much further advanced than he was as to the chemistry of tubercle; but it is interesting to ob- serve this man, of truly practical habits, endeavouring to turn to good account the collateral science of animal che- mistry, now, in many respects, a valuable help to the patho- logist, and yet destined to be of still greater service to him. The above, so far as I have been able to gather, are Dr Abercrombie's chief contributions toperiodical or serial medical literature. We have brought him down, as an author, to the year 1823, by which time his extended reputation and conse- quent unceasing employment as a consulting physician, left him but little time for writing papers. Though he ceased to contribute to the journals, however, he did not discontinue his labours as a medical author. In 1828 he published, in one volume, the papers from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord, much improved in many respects, especially as regards due recog- nition of the phenomena of softening of the brain, which he compared to gangrene in other textures, and holds to arise, in one form, from inflammation, in another, from obstructed circulation in the brain. In the same year, under the title of Diseases of the Abdominal Viscera, he republished his patho- logical papers on the Intestinal Canal, with additional chap- ters on the liver and other abdominal organs, which he had contributed to the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal in 1824. In the collecting of his papers on cerebral and ab- dominal pathology into distinct volumes, he had been antici- pated by others; a strong proof of the value with which these papers had been regarded by the profession at the time of their publication. In 1821 the separate papers on diseases of the brain were collected and translated into German by Dr De Blois, under the directions of Professor Nasse of Bonn, who appended to the volume some observations of his own upon tumours of the brain. In 1822 Dr Wolff of Bonn col- lected into one volume, and translated into German, the papers from the sixteenth volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal on the Diseases of the Intestinal Canal. The books, as completed and published separately by Abercrombie himself, were subsequently ti-anslated into French and German. They were thus, both at home and abroad, at once recognised as standard works on Patho- logy 5 they found a place in every medical library, and a new edition of each was called for and published two years after- wards. From this time Abercrombie's contributions to strictly medical literature were few and comparatively unimportant. In 1832 he published a small treatise entitled Suggestions on
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