Surgical essays : the result of clinical observations made at Guy's Hospital / by B. B. Cooper.

  • Bransby Blake Cooper
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical essays : the result of clinical observations made at Guy's Hospital / by B. B. Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    not rather to consider that the phosphate of lime, when combined and united with the softer animal constituents of the bone, is, as much under the peculiar influence of life, as the bases of these animal constituents themselves; and, consequently, that no analogy can be drawn between phos- phate of lime, forming part of the living body, and when separated from it? We have an evidence of this fact in the disease termed Necrosis, in which there is a separation of the animal and earthy parts of bone; the latter being no longer capable of sustaining an independent existence, acts as an extraneous substance, and is immediate!}’ thrown olF by the same process as a slough of soft parts. This peculiar modiflcation, constituting the difference be- tween the osseous and softer structures of the body, refers principally to the presence and quantity of phosphate of lime, in the inverse proportion to which the degree of vitality in a bone depends, as well as the number of blood-vessels which it receives. Hence, therefore, the progress of reparation, or any dis- eased action, is rendered slow’ or rapid in proportion to the preponderance of earthy or animal matter ; those parts which are most compact, repairing injuries with less rapidity than the more spongy. It having been generally admitted, that the reparation and growth of bone are governed by the same laws, and subject to the same process, it will be right to give a slight sketch of the view I entertain upon this subject. In the embryo, at the earlier periods of uterine gestation, there is no apparent difference in the rudiments of the future osseous system, and the other animal structures,—the whole constituting a membranous mass, containing a soft gelatinous .semifluid matter. From the seventh to the eight week after conception, some of those parts, which in future are destined to perform functions requiring strength and solidity, become the subject of ossific deposition ; so that the osseous system is not completed all at the same moment, but progressively.
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