Fundamental conceptions as to the characteristics and embodiments of life, with special reference to pathology : being the inaugural lecture at the foundation of the Chair of Pathology ... delivered in the Bute Hall 22nd October, 1894 / by Joseph Coats, M.D.

  • Coats, Joseph, 1846-1899.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fundamental conceptions as to the characteristics and embodiments of life, with special reference to pathology : being the inaugural lecture at the foundation of the Chair of Pathology ... delivered in the Bute Hall 22nd October, 1894 / by Joseph Coats, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    21 icsouiceful observer, and, more especially, I cannot agree with his endeavour to reform our use of the term in- flammation, but I must admit the beauty and ingenuity of his observations and the soundness of many of his deductions. I cordially acknowledge also that his study of pathological processes in the lower and simpler forms of animal life has opened up a sphere of work of the utmost promise. Metchnikoff’s observations have regard to the relation of the living cells of the body, to the intrusion into the body of deleterious and other ex- traneous matters, and more especially to the intrusion of those minute microscopic organisms which we call bacteiia 01 microbes. It is well known now to every- body that a large number of diseases are produced by the invasion into the living body of hosts of these minute living cells, some of which have the faculty of evolving virulent poisons, and by means of these producing patho- logical changes in the tissues. We are not much more than at the threshold of this great subject of Bacterio- logy, whose creation as a science we owe to the great French chemist and biologist, M. Pasteur, but it has already boine much practical fruit, and daily promises more. In Metchnikoff’s view the invasion of hostile microbes is, in many cases, met by a mustering of living cells with a view to the protection of the body. It fs well known that living cells, and especially certain kinds of cells, aie capable of taking into their substance solid particles of matter. Many unicellular animals live by englobing solid nutritious particles and digesting them in their protoplasm. In the higher animals the leuco- cytes of the blood and lymphatic fluid are the principal possessors of this power of taking up and dealing with solid particles, although it is not limited to them. It is asserted then, that when the body is invaded by microbes which are capable of producing disease, the cells, in most cases the leucocytes, meet them and endeavour]