Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology / by John Hunter, being his posthumous papers on those subjects, arranged and revised, with notes ; to which are added the introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, March 8th, 10th and 12th, 1855 / by Richard Owen.

John Hunter

Date:: 1861

Credit: Essays and observations on natural history, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and geology / by John Hunter, being his posthumous papers on those subjects, arranged and revised, with notes ; to which are added the introductory lectures on the Hunterian collection of fossil remains delivered in the theatre of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, March 8th, 10th and 12th, 1855 / by Richard Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$cellulce adiposce, I think the animal parts of the hone should he called (calcose membrane,' cellulce terrestres seu calcarece. Young hone may always be said to grow, even the part that seems to be already formed; for at first it is growing longer, thicker and denser; so that there is always new matter added until it is at its full growth. But in the full-grown state, it would appear from the circumstance of reddening a whole bone by feeding the animal with madder, that a bone, although completely formed, yet is changing its earth, and pro- bably every other part. This effect, however, is much slower than in the growing bone. This would show that the madder does not act as a dye upon the earth which is already deposited in the bone, but only upon that matter that is every day deposited; and as there is a great deal more deposited in a young bone than in an old one in a given time, in the same proportion must it dye sooner than an old one. The new matter that is deposited in an old bone is to make up for the waste that is daily going on in it; but in a very old bone the waste is more than the repair1. Bones would seem to have but very little sensibility. This is best known in the fractured patella: where generally there is no contusion, no splinters to run into sensible parts, and nothing torn but what is also insensible. People who meet with such an accident, seldom complain of pain when it happens. It is similar in this respect to the rupture of the tendo Achillis2. The number of bones should he reckoned according to the number of distinct cartilages which ossify; for, in general, wherever Nature in- tended a bone, she first made a cartilage of the shape of the intended bone. Yet this is not universal; for I believe in none of the bones of the head, except the occipital and sphenoid bones, is there a cartilage: the others being formed in membrane; and even in the exceptions above mentioned it is only at the union of the ossifications that we find cartilage: in their circumference we find the bony rays shooting out into membrane. From this mode of numbering bones, we see that the bones called ' occipitale' and ' sphenoides' are but one bone. However, as a general principle, it appears the best; for we find it almost every where else in the body. Therefore it seems improper to give the parts of one bone in the adult two, three, or four different names, because it 1 [The preparations resulting from the experiments on the growth of bone are Nos. 188—201, Phys. Series. See also the memoir on the same subject From the Papers of the late Mr. Hunter, communicated by Home to the Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and C'hirurgical Knowledge, vol. ii. p. 277, 1798.] 2 [An injury of which Hunter had personal experience.]$

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