Volume 1

The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer.

Date:
1835-37
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of John Hunter / edited by James F. Palmer. 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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    ets of the teeth, and also of the fangs of the shedding teeth, which was in the years 1754 and 1755 (see Treatise on the Teeth, first and second parts). This opinion was strengthened by what I observed in the pro- cess going on in the exfoliation of bones. It may be difficult to conceive how part of the body should remove itself, but it is just as difficult to conceive how the body can form itself. They are both equally facts. The knowledge of their mode of action would perhaps answer but little purpose. This, at least, I may assert, that when any solid part of the body undergoes diminution, brought on in consequence of disease, it is the absorbent system that has done it; they are the thieves. The remote cause of absorption of whole and living parts implies the existence of two conditions, the first of which is a consciousness, in the part to be absorbed, of the unfitness or impossibility of remaining under such circumstances, whatever they be, and therefore they become ready for removal, and submit to it with ease. The second is a consciousness of the absorbents of such a state of the parts. Both these concurring, they have nothing to do but to fall to the work*. Now the part that is to be absorbed is alive, it must feel its own in- efficacy and admit of absorption. The vessels must have the stimulus of imperfection of this part, as if they were sensible that this part were unfit; therefore take it up. There must be a sensation in both parts. When the part to be absorbed is a dead part, as nourishment and extraneous matter of all kinds, then the whole disposition is in the ab- sorbents f. This is the only mode in which this power is capable of producing such effects, and, like all other operations of the machine, arises from either stimulus or irritation, all the other modes of destruction being either mechanical or chemical. [It is by the progressive absorption that matter, or pus, and extraneous bodies of all kinds are brought to the surface of the body. It is by this process that bone exfoliates and sloughs are separated. It is the absorbents which remove whole bones while the arteries are forming new ones. It is this operation that removes the alveolar processes * [The reader, I imagine, will scarcely refrain from smiling at the naivete with which our author here ascribes consciousness and intelligence to an animal body, to an extent little inferior to Boerhaave, Van Helmont, or even Stahl. It were devoutly to be wished that the body politic possessed a similar consciousness of what ought to be done, and an equal will and power to carry its resolutions into effect.] f [It is difficult to conceive how the absorbents can axt on detached solid sub- stances, incapable of solution, as bone, for example ; yet portions of dead bone are often observed to be entirely absorbed in cases of necrosis; and in some experiments made by Mr. Thomas Blizard, in which disks of bone were bound on over ulcers; the surfaces of these disks were found to be eaten out, or destroyed, just as in common caries.]