Treatise on inflammation as a process of anormal nutrition / by John Hughes Bennett.

Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on inflammation as a process of anormal nutrition / by John Hughes Bennett. 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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    it was formed, or tlic doctrine of cytogenesis heard of. In Ger- many the animal oils are extensively used in all cases of perverted nutrition, from excess of albumen, they have long held and still hold a prominent place in all the pharmacopoeias of Germany, Hol- land, Sweden, and Denmark, and, at the present day, are conti- nually prescribed by the most eminent practitioners, both physi- cians and surgeons of those countries. Perhaps there are few ar- ticles in the Materia Medica the value of which, in the cases in- dicated, has been supported by such a mass of incontestible evi- dence.* Although the doctrine of cytogenesis undoubtedly embraces a vast number of facts, late researches have shown that it is not so uni- versally applicable as Schwann and his followers have supposed. We have already alluded to the formation of a membrane, and of structures by the union of oil and albumen. The former is very analogous to the sarcolemma, and basement membrane of Bowman, and we have seen a similar one form on the surface of healthy blood during the act of coagulation. Filaments also are deposited in the liquor sanguinis of buffy blood which may be seen forming under the microscope independent of cells, as noti- ced by Gulliver and Addison. Further, the clot frequently pre- vents a purely fibrous structure, and, there is every reason to sup- pose, as we shall afterwards see, that this fibrous and filamentous texture is subservient to union by the first intention, independent of the formation of nucleated cells. But although the proposi- tion, that every filament is the result of cellular development, re- quires modification, we have no doubt that all the compound structures, and the essential phenomena of growth, are mainly at- tributable to the transformation of nucleated cells. Instead, how- ever, of supposing that this alone constitutes the process of forma- tion, facts, in our opinion, indicate that this is combined with the occasional production of membranes, granules, and filaments by- means of simple deposition. Perhaps also it may ultimately be seen even more decidedly, that the theory of deposition brought forward by Mandl, should be more or less conjoined with the beautiful doctrine of cytogenesis elaborated by Scbleiden au Schwann. If so, future researches must determine the limits which' should be ascribed to each, in order that our ideas of formation and growth may be rendered more universally applicable, than ) adopting one view to the exclusion of the other. From all that has preceded it must be evident that the process of nutrition is dependent, on the one hand, upon the blood, an on the other, upon the structures by means of which its nutn i« portions are eliminated. These, therefore, it will be necessary take into consideration. ' See the Writer’s Treatise on the Ot. Jecoris Ascllu