Volume 1

A manual of pathological anatomy / By Carl Rokitansky.

  • Rokitansky, Karl, Freiherr von, 1804-1878.
Date:
1849-1854 [v. 1, 1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of pathological anatomy / By Carl Rokitansky. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    conclusion of the general anatomy, in which a_ frequent reference to them will have previously demonstrated the in- dispensable nature of the enquiry, as a sort of connecting link between general and special anatomy. We shall thus have to discuss, in ten separate chapters, the anomalies of organisation, There are, however, a few general points which require some previous explanation. 1. The said anomalies, being simple alterations of the normal being and of its parts, appear as abnormal conditions, excluding the idea of an independent parasitic organism of disease. } 11. No formation is incapable of becoming diseased in one or more ways. Several anomalies coexisting in an organ commonly stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. Thus, deviations in texture very frequently determine deviations in size, in form,—and these again deviations in position. De- viations in position give rise to anomalies of volume and of texture. 111. Pathological anatomy, proximately concerned with anomalies of individual organs and systems—with local anomalies—has often reserved for it the task of revealing by experiment and deduction the existence of general disease, as also of establishing the mutual relations which exist between the two. The seat of general diseases may now be referred, almost without exception, to the blood [the fiuids]. They appear, therefore, as anomalies of admixture or crasis, either primary or secondary. tv. This demonstration of general disease is indeed a step in advance for pathological anatomy. It threatens, however, to mislead us into the error of exclusive, transcendental, all- pervading humoralism—into the error of denying all local disease, by deducing the latter in every instance from a corres- ponding general affection,—-not but ‘that many diseases really are but the localisation of a pre-existent general disease.