Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1842-3 / [Sir James Paget].
- James Paget
- Date:
- 1844
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1842-3 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![the bones were deprived of fat and periosteum : in each the average of six exami¬ nations is given; Marchand’s* were made on thigh-bones, Lehmann’sf on the long bones of the arm and leg. Marchand. Lehmann, C Cartilage insoluble in h.cl. Organic matter * * * § ,, soluble ,, ( Vessels 27-23 ) 5 02 } 1*01 ) ... 33*26 ... 32-56 Phosphate of lime Fluate of lime! .... • • • 52*26 } • 1* 5 ... 54-61 Carbonate of lime • • 10-21 9-41 Phosphate of magnesia • . 1-05 107 Soda ..... • « 0 92 1*11 Hydrochlorate of Soda Oxydes of iron and manganese } • 0-25 1-05 0-38 and loss $ • • ... -86 100- © ] o The following are average relative proportions of organic and earthy matter, collected by Lehmann from his own and the analyses of two other observers. Frerichs Sebastian. Lehmann. Compact bone. Spongy bone. Organic . 36-66 32*28 31-2 37*82 Earthy . 63*34 67*72 68*8 62*18 All found that the earthy matter increases with age. In a memoir on ancient and fossil bones, M. Gerardin§ states that the degrees of alteration which buried bones undergo depend almost entirely on the degrees in which the soils are exposed to air and moisture. They always lose more or less of their animal matter; and sometimes, when they lie in a soil traversed by streams of water, it is completely removed: the ammonia proceeding from the part first decomposed saponifies the rest and makes it soluble. In human bones long buried and in fossil bones there is always more subphosphate of lime than in recent bones; in human bones long buried the proportion of carbonate of lime is gene¬ rally diminished, in fossil bones it is increased. In fossil bones also there is always some fluate of lime; in human bones, under whatever circumstances, there is none: it seems to be introduced into fossil bones by infiltration from without, and its presence may be depended on as a sign that a bone is really fossilized. Structure of bone. Dr. Fleischmann|| has described the minute structure of vegetable ivory, from the fruit of the manicaria saccifera, (Gartner,) a species of palm growing near the coast of Guiana, as being closely analogous to that of bone, at least in regard to the corpuscles which it presents. It possesses also, he says, somewhat of the chemical properties of bone. Thin sections exhibit the most beautiful structures, like the bone-corpuscles, except that they are more regu¬ lar, and lie within regularly-formed cells, of which they appear to be the nuclei. Branches like the calcigerous canals proceed from each corpuscle, but do not give off smaller branches nor extend beyond the wall of the cell; each branch ends within the cell-wall in a bluntly-closed extremity. He believes that there is the same arrangement in true bone; that each corpuscle has, like a nucleus, a dis¬ tinct cell-wall around it, such as he has figured in a section of bone from a child ; that the canals of the corpuscles are unbranched, and that they end within the cell walls, having only an appearance of anastomosis with the canals in adja¬ cent cells. 5[ * Journal der Prakt. Chemie, Bd. xxvii, p. 83. t Schmidt’s Jahrbucher, 1843, No. vi; see also the Chemist, 1843, Nos. 1, *2, and 3. I See the next paragraph from M. Gerardin, whose analyses confirm those of Mr. G. O. Rees, in denying the presence of fluate of lime in human or any but fossilized bones. § Report from the Academie des Sciences, Gazette Medicale, Oct. 15, 1842. j| Muller’s Archiv, 1843, Heft iii, p. 202. H In these two last opinions he is certainly wrong; the first is in accordance with the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30385696_0016.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
