Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1844-5 / [Sir James Paget].

  • James Paget
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1844-5 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was formed which was insoluble in all acids, but soluble in alkalies. When . bile and albumen were mixed and acetic acid added, a precipitate like coagu¬ lated fibrine was formed; and a similar precipitate was formed by the agency of even carbonic acid ; showing that although the bilate of soda (i. e. the pure principle of bile) retains its composition under the action of either acids or alkalies alone, yet it is decomposed easily by combinations of acids with organic substances. When bile was added to a solution of albumen or gelatine obtained by artificial digestion, precipitates were formed which were soluble in acetic acid and consisted of bilic acid united with the organic substance. Sugar and gum in like circumstances appeared to unite with the fatty matters of the bile. Fceces. The usual microscopic constituents of human feces are thus enu¬ merated by Dr. Gobee.* 1. A large quantity of vegetable cellular tissue, with or without epidermis and hairs. 2. Vegetable hairs. 3. Vegetable spiral vessels. 4. Elongated quadrangular plates of light yellow colour in great abundance, of uncertain nature ; they are not affected by acetic acid, and are insoluble in cold ether, but iodine displays transverse striae on them. [Probably they are portions of muscular fibre. I have found such, tinged pale yellow by the bile, in the fluid discharged through an artificial anus.] 5. Large quantities of crystals of phosphate of ammonia and magnesia. 6. Fat-globules or cells in various quantity. 7« A great quantity of granules. 8. Few epi¬ thelium- and mucus-cells. 9. Much of the brown-colouring matter of the bile. ADSORPTION. Structure of the Lymphatics. The subject of one of Mr. Goodsir’s excel¬ lent essaysf is the structure of the lymphatic glands. At the points of con¬ nexion between the extra- and intra-glandular lymphatic vessels, the coats of the former (whether afferent or efferent) separate. The outer coat is continued into the external capsule of the gland, from which processes pass inwards, binding together the substance of the gland, and supporting the vessels within it. The middle, or fibrous coat, is usually nearly lost, as the vessels pass towards the centre of the gland. But the internal coat becomes thicker and more opaque in the intra-glandular lymphatics ; and when, in any of these thickened, dilated, and oft anastomosing vessels, it is broken up, it appears composed of two substances; namely, first, a thin transparent membrane, in which ovoidal bodies, containing one or more minute vesicles, are imbedded, as “ germinal spots,at regular distances ; and secondly, thick layers of close- packed spherical nucleated particles about l-5000tli of an inch in diameter, which make the vessel appear opaque, and leave only a narrow and irregular canal along its axis, the walls of which canal appear formed by them, not by any membrane lining them. The capillaries in the lymphatic glands ramify in contact with (not in the substance of) the external layer of their coats; as they do on the ultimate ducts of the true secreting glands; and they form as fine a network. The general result of these observations is plainly favorable to the opinion of an intimate analogy between the lymphatic and the true secreting glands ; of which some account was given in the last Report, and more will presently be said in speaking of the glands without ducts. Process of Absorption. Some observations by E. H. Weber§ are said to prove that the chyle is first absorbed into the epithelium-cells covering the villi, which, at a certain period, are found full of chyle-globules, and from which it is transferred into the proper cells of the villi, to be by them con¬ veyed to the lacteal vessels. And among the cells of the villi, it is said that * Kliniek ; Tijdschrift voor wetensch. Geueeskunde; voor G. C. Gobee, 1844, St. iv. t Anat. and Pathol. Observations, No. viii, p.44. { The expression has reference to the author’s genera] theory of nutrition : the bodies he describes appear to me identical in aspect with the nuclei or cytoblasts of many secreting gland-ducts. § Archives d’Anat. Gen. et de Physiol., Jan. 1846.