Volume 1

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

  • James Paget
Date:
1882-1885
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 King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    body. This maybe divided into tbe natural and the diseased*. In the natural they are to be considered as the modellers of the original construction of the body ; and if we were to consider them fully in this view, we should find that no alteration can take place in the original formation of many of the parts, either in the natural growth, or that formation arising from disease, in which the absorbents are not in action, and take not a considerable part: this absorption I shall caU modelling absorption. Absorption in consequence of disease is the power of removing complete parts of the body, and is in its operation somewhat similar to the first of this division, or modelling process, but very different in the intention, and therefore in its ultimate effects. This pro- cess of removing whole parts in consequence of disease in some cases produces effects which are not similar to one another: one of these is a sore or ulcer, and I therefore call it ulcerative. In. other cases no ulcer is produced, although whole parts are re- moved, and for this I have not been able to find a term; but both may be denominated progressive absorption.—Hunter, On the Blood, 6fG.: WorJcs, vol. iii. pp. 460-462. The second [kind or degree of interstitial absorption] is the absorption of a whole part, where not a vestige is left. This would seem to be of two kinds ; one where it is only in consequence of another disease, and is a necessary and useful effect of that disease, as assisting in bringing parts to the surface; but the other appears to arise from a disease in the part itself, as the total decay of the alveoli, without any disease in the teeth or gums, which however in the end suffer; as also the total wasting of a testicle, the absorption of a callus, &c. It is the first of these two kinds which is most to my present purpose, and deserves our particular attention. It takes place in a thousand instances; we find it gradually taking place in the part of the body which happens to lie between encysted tumours and the external surface, when they are making their way to the skin. This absorption is com- monly slow in its progress, so much so as even to make the ultimate effect, although considerable, not sensible tiU a certain length of time has elapsed. This mode of removing parts appears to arise from pressure, as in the former; but here some principles are reversed. The contents of an encysted tumour do not give the stimulus of re- moval to that side of the cyst nearest to the external surface, as happens in an abscess, so as to produce a removal of the surface pressed by its contents, which would be the progressive ulceration, as in our first division ; but the tumour gives the stimulus to the sound parts, between it and the skin, and an absorption of those parts takes place, similar to that which I suppose takes place in the removal of caUuses of bones from weakness. We find, when- ever an encysted tumour is formed in the cellular membrane, it in time makes its approaches towards the skin, by the cellular * These uses I claim as my own discovery. I have taught them pub- licly ever since the year 1772.