Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget].

  • James Paget
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the progress of human anatomy and physiology in the year 1843-4 / [Sir James Paget]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/66 (page 10)
    GENF.RAL ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE TISSUES. Tendinous tissues* S. Pappenheimf has described the nerves of several of these tissues. In the periosteum, whether covering the shafts or the articular ends of bones, he finds them very numerous, lying especially in the outer surface of the membrane, in company with or upon the arteries, and having terminal loops. In the ligaments, there are nerves, which, after ramifying in the cellular tissues covering them, penetrate with the processes of that cellular tissue, in com¬ pany with or upon the vessels, into the substance of the ligaments and end in them with plexuses and loops. Nerves may be found in like manner in all cap¬ sular ligaments: and it may be expressed, as a general rule, that all ligaments which receive vessels receive also a small number of nerves, though it is but one or two primitive fibres. In tendons, nerves can only sometimes be traced: and Pappenheim has never traced them into human tendons. He supposes that here also the rule of nerves coexisting with arteries may hold; [but here he is wrong, for arteries may be injected in the toughest tendons;] he believes that he has proved the existence of both sympathetic, sensitive, and motor fibres, in all nerves of the fibrous tissues which he lias yet examined. Serous membranes. Reichert]; describes (what Henle doubted) an epithelium on the interior of the tendinous and sub-cutaneous bursae, like that lining arteries and the true serous membranes. He has also§ explained the error of his and Remak’s observation of a supposed layer of cells wfithin the epithelium of the blood-vessels.]| The appearance is due to the formation of artificial vesicles by the action of water. It is often produced on the surface of serous membranes, gland-ducts, &c.; and is always likely to lead to error. Valentin^ has related some interesting experiments on the properties of ani¬ mal membranes as filters. A solution [or suspension] of albumen so diluted that it appeared a homogeneous fluid under the microscope, when filtered through some horses’ pleura previously dried, was separated into a more diluted fluid which passed through, and a more concentrated one which was retained upon the filter. A similar division was similarly effected in pure serum which had been repeatedly filtered through paper. Saline solutions passed through unaltered. [Probably it may be added that different serous membranes filter with different degrees of fineness, and that on this depends the differences of the fluids found in them after death. The fluid of the cerebral ventricles, for example, though having no characters of a true secretion, is peculiar; and, unlike the fluids of other serous membranes, is not tinged when the serum is coloured by madder, and is very rarely discoloured in jaundice. It appears to be a fluid more finely-filtered from the liquor sanguinis. Again, under the increased pressure from congestion, whether passive or active, the filtration of the fluid through the blood-vessels and serous membranes will be less fine : hence the general occurrence of soft jelly-like masses and thin strings of fibrine in the fluid effused in ascites from extreme obstruction of the circulation: hence, also, a probable explanation of what Bischoff ** has remarked, that the abdominal cavity in rabbits and bitches at the time of heat often contains some pellucid fluid which almost all-coagu¬ lates when left at rest. These facts also coincide with the observations of Mr. Robinsonff on the effects of obstruction of the renal circulation in producing effu¬ sion of parts of the blood into the urinary tubules: and with some of his recent illustrations];]; of the general effects of the increased lateral pressure of the blood on the walls of the minute vessels],§§ * On the Structure of the Fibro-cellular tissue, see Reichert’s observations on the description of the nerve-fibres. t Muller’s Archiv, 1843, Heft v. t Ib 1844* Jahresbericht, p. 229. § lb. p. 289. U See Report, 1842, p 39. H Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, Bd. i, p. 601. ** Muller’s Archiv, 1844, Jahresbericht, p. 120. ft Medico Chirurgical Trans., vol. xxvi, p. 51. See also the similar observations of Dr. H. Mayer, on the Effects of Congestion of the Vessels of the Digestive Canal, in Schmidt’s Jahrbucher, Mai 1844. f::j: Medical Gazette, June 28, 1844. §§ The observations included in brackets and most of those in the notes are the author’s. See, further, Krause’s account of Epidermis, with that of the Skin.