Volume 1

Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

  • Royal College of Surgeons of England. Museum.
Date:
1846-9
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive catalogue of the pathological specimens contained in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    18/162 (page 4)
    and especially the parietal, exhibit the effects of increased growth, in adaptation to the enlargement of the head by hydrocephalus. The parietal bone weighs about four ounces, and measures, diagonally, nine inches. It is thin, but its texture appears healthy. From the Museum of Joshua Brookes, Esq. 3. The pelvis and part of the chest, with the urinary and some of the adjacent organs, of an Argus pheasant {Phasianus Argus, Linn.). The left ureter is dilated, and the left kidney is very small, granular, and shrivelled. In compensation, the right kidney is increased to an unusually large size ; not by distension, but apparently by growth of its natural texture, so that through it as much urine may have been excreted as through both kidneys in the ordinary state. There is a corresponding difference of size in the renal arteries; the size of each is adapted to that of the organ in which it is distributed. Hunterian. 4. A toe, on which, directly over one of its articulations, a corn has been formed, by the increased thickness and density of a portion of the cuticle which has grown and become harder in consequence of increased occa- sional pressure. Beneath the corn a small sac or bursa has been formed directly over the subjacent articulation. Hunterian. The cuticle admits of being thickened from pressure in all parts of the body : hence we find that on the soles of the feet of those wlio walk mucli the cuticle becomes very thick ; also on the hands of labouring men. We find this wherever there is pressure, as on the elbow, upper part of the little toe, ball of the great toe, &c. The immediate and first cause of this thickening would appear to be the stimulus of necessity given to the cutis by this pressure, the effect of which is an increase of the cuticle to defend the cutis underneatli. Not only the cuticle tliickens, but tlie parts underneath, and a sacculus is often formed at the root of the great toe, between the cutis antl ligaments of the joint, arising from the same cause, to guard the ligaments below.—Hunter; Lectures on Surgery : Works, vol. i. p. 560. When from without, pressure rather stimulates than irritates : it shall give signs of strength and produce an increase of thickening: but when from within, the same quan- tity of pressure will produce waste [See Nos. 120, 121] ; for the first effect of the pressure from without is the disposition to thicken, which is rather an operation of strength; but if it exceeds the stimulus of thickening, then the pressure becomes an irritator, and the power appears to give way to it, and absorption of the parts pressed