usually adopted. This consists in a compromise, or attempted compromise, of truth with error, of reform with abuse, an introduction of some useful emendations, a retention of many existing imperfections, a fear to take one's stand on broad and ultimate ground. The other mode-that alone worthy of great minds and honest natures, the mode by which the animosities, confusions, sufferings, which unavoidably accompany reforms, are made the least, because the soonest over,-is to occupy at once and from the first, ground coextensive with truth and fact, and nothing short of this. This you have well done in your article. You certainly have not overstepped the due limit. That the projected reformation is directly calculated to affect the interests of mere apothecaries, and also of all quacks in and out of the profession-nay, that it is calculated to curtail the numbers and limit the services of qualified medical men,―cannot be concealed or denied. But whoever would cavil at your article, at your statements, and at the reform you suggest and advocate, on the ground that the adoption of the proposed plans would affect the pecuniary interests, present or future, of himself, his profession, his trade, is, to say the very least, a man whose opinion or opposition may be easily disregarded. "Will you allow me to state to you my opinion of Dr. Henderson's printed answer to your article? I believe I express the general impression of the profession, when I characterize it as most unsatisfactory and sophistical. I should, moreover, think that homoeopathists must be equally dissatisfied with it. Dr. Henderson's homeopathy is certainly not Hahnemann's. His lower dilutions are very little weaker than those now employed by many of our way of thinking and prescribing. He adds nothing whatever to the evidence already adduced, or, perhaps, I should rather say, to the evidence still wanted-to establish the homeopathic principle. The self-complacency-I shall not say, the dogmatism-of his style, in reasoning against a systern he so recently held, is somewhat amusing, and confirms the long-made remark that there is no zealot so unmitigated as the proselyte or apostate." (W) -—, January 12, 1846. "The opinions you have offered respecting both homoeopathy and allopathy I have long entertained. With regard to homoeopathy, I have, publicly and privately, constantly advocated a similar mode of explaining its apparently successful results. My confidence in the allopathic cures, by drugs, was greatly shaken by Louis's Recherches.' ... In speaking or writing respecting the curative or therapeutical powers of drugs, I have a thousand times felt the want of a correct knowledge of the natural history of diseases. How readily do we allopathists detect the want of this knowledge in the homoeopathists, yet have overlooked our own ignorance on this point. How is this knowledge to be attained ?" "It is long since I waged war under the banner of Young Physic,' and I shall most gladly join your ranks and follow your generalship. I have long argued the point with and begged him to try the milk-globules unimpregnated, but without success. I think, in the general opinion of the profession, yon will be thought to have gone too far, especially in drug-giving and billmaking England. But in the opinion of the best men, I am sure you will be approved a just judge." PART FOURTH. Original Reports and Memoirs. REPORT ON THE PROGRESS OF HUMAN ANATOMY AND PART II. BY JAMES PAGET, Lecturer on General and Morbid Anatomy and Physiology, and Warden of the College, NUTRITION. * In its Chemical Relations.-Formation of Fat. I cannot find, in the long course of experimental pig-fattening described by M. Boussingault, anything that is both new and interesting to human physiology. He and M. Persoz↑ who has fattened geese, do not appear to have found out more than was already known, namely, that the presence of fatty matter in the food is not essential to the formation of fat in the body; and that a certain quantity of nitrogenous principles in the food is essential to that end; the mere truth being that for an animal to grow soundly fat it must be in tolerable health, and that for this it must have some of its natural diet. In relation to the well-proved formation of fat from the saccharine principles of the food, an interesting observation is made by H. Meckel. He finds that when grape-sugar and bile are mingled fatty matter is formed from the former; thus, in his chief experiment, performed under the guidance of Marchand, 440 grammes of ox-bile were divided into four parts: the first, while recent, was treated with ether; the second was so treated after exposure for twenty-four hours to the heat of an incubating machine; to each of the third and fourth portions, there were added 4 grammes of grapesugar obtained from starch; and the third was exposed for five hours, and the fourth for twenty-four hours, to the heat of the incubating machine. Then, from these third and fourth portions, all the fatty matter was extracted by ether. The quantities of fatty matter thus obtained were, from the first portion, 48 grammes; from the second, 54; from the third, 87; from the fourth, * Annuaire de Chimie, 1846, p. 789, from the Ann. de Chimie et de Physique, t. xiv. + Report from the Acad. des Sciences, 16 Decembre, 1844, in the Gazette Médic., 21 Decembre. Three of the principal papers on the formation of fat, by MM. Edwards, Boussingault, and Persoz, which have been noticed in the last two Reports, are fully reprinted in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Août, 1845. They are all admirably criticised by Liebig, in the Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, Juni 1845; and in the Lancet, of the same month. ‡ De Genesi Adipis in Animalibus; Halis, 1845, 8vo. I did not obtain this treatise in time to mention the fact as a contribution to the physiology of the liver. XLIII.-XXII. 18 184. The much larger quantity of fatty matter in the third and fourth portions can be assigned only to the sugar which was added to the bile; and the greater quantity in the fourth than in the third appears to show the gradual progress of the transformation, which was not completed in the last portion even after twenty-four hours; for sugar unchanged could still be detected in it. It is thus made probable that the process of transformation of the amylaceous principles of the food into fat consists in their being, first, by the saliva and pancreatic-fluid, transformed into grape-sugar, of which some is converted by the bile into fatty matter in the intestines, and the rest, absorbed by the vessels leading to the portal vein, is carried in its branches to the liver, and therein is also converted into fatty matter. This is confirmed by an experiment of Trommer, who, having fed animals on grape-sugar, detected it in the blood of the portal vein, but not in that of the hepatic veins. Neither is it impossible that a similar series of transformations should be effected in carnivorous animals; the gelatine of their food being, perhaps, converted into sugar of gelatine, and this into fatty matter. Quantity of Nitrogen in Food. Drs. Schlossberger and Kemp* have constructed a table of what they suppose to be the comparative proportions of nutriment in our several organic aliments; but it is scarcely more than a table of the comparative proportions of nitrogen in them. It is too long to be extracted, and cannot be analysed. Proportions of Elements discharged in the Excretions. Some experiments on chickens, by Dr. Sace,† show the respective quantities of the elements of their food which are discharged by the cloacal excrements, and by transpiration. Two chickens consumed in a week, in barley, chalk, and sand, 211·544 grammes of carbon, 30-1551 of hydrogen, 10-6123 of nitrogen, 197-468 of oxygen, and 15-4695 of substances which would have remained as ash after combustion; and their cloacal excrements yielded of carbon 50.3946 grammes, of hydrogen 6-7275, of nitrogen 4-3524, of oxygen 45-9836, and of inorganic matter remaining as ash 121 6128. Their joint increase in weight was 19.18 grammes; allowing for this, the quantities of the several constituents which were transpired and retained in the tissues may be easily reckoned. NUTRITION IN ITS RELATIONS TO STRucture. Theory of Cell-Development. A very lucid exposition of this theory, and of the principal facts concerning the history and nature of the nucleated cell in the structures of animals, has been published by Kölliker. The subject has also been thoroughly discussed by Reichert§ in his Report on the Progress of Microscopic Anatomy in 1843,' his observations being included in an examination of essays by Karsten,|| Kölliker, and Nägeli.** The general tendency of the whole is to show that we are yet very far from the knowledge of the true mode of development of the nucleated cell in animals. There is indeed in all these essays, as well as in the personal knowledge of most anatomists, an abundance of facts bearing upon the subject; but many, perhaps • Lond. and Edinb. Philos. Mag., Nov. 1845; Medical Gazette, Dec. 12, 1845; and Annalen der Chemie, Oct. 1845. + Annalen der Chemie, Oct. 1844. He seems to think his experiments show what proportion of food is assimilated, and what is at once excreted without being first assimilated; but they do not do this. In Schleiden and Nägeli's Zeitschrift, Heft ii, 1845; another part is announced for publication, but I have not been able to obtain it. In Müller's Archiv, 1844, No. vi. Jahresbericht, pp. 148-172. De Cella Vitali; Berol. 1843. See last Report. Entwickelungsgeschichte der Cephalopoden; Zurich, 1844. ** Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Pollens; Zurich, 1842; and in Schleiden and Nägeli's Zeitschrift für Botanik, 1844, Heft i. the majority, of these facts cannot be brought within the expressions of Schwann's theory of cell-development; neither can there be yet traced in them any single, uniform, and constant mode of development of the nucleated cell. From the very nature of the case, it seems most probable that one law and one mode must be always observed in the development of the cell and its parts; if it be so, the one mode is unknown; if it be not so, then, in the place of the fair and comprehensive system of Schwann we have a crowd of unconnected facts such as no memory can contain, and of which it would be useless, even if it were possible, to give a brief report. The observations of Reichert, as well as those in the other works just referred to, relate only, or principally, to the genesis of the nucleated cell and its several parts; and he implies that there is much less room for doubt concerning the metamorphoses of the cell itself, by which, of it or through it, all the more highly organized animal tissues are supposed to be formed. It appears to me, however, that we can be as little sure of many of the changes which nucleated cells are said to pass through in the formation of other tissues, as we are of the process by which the cells themselves are formed. The development of all the fibrous tissues appears especially doubtful. For the investigations of every year show the great difficulty or impossibility of confirming the observations by which Schwann explained the development of these and some other tissues, and the equal facility of finding appearances which cannot be reconciled with his theory, or any other single theory yet proposed concerning it.* I have found ample reason for expressing these doubts of the sufficiency of the accepted theories of development in recent examinations of tumours and other morbid growths. Their structure seems peculiarly adapted for testing a theory of cell-development; for they are, doubtless, obedient to the same general laws of formation as the healthy structures are, and, in the unequal and often rapid growth of their several parts, it could hardly happen but that in many specimens all the phases would be seen through which their structures pass towards their fully developed state. But in very numerous examinations I have not found a single example in which a cell has appeared to be forming or formed around a pre-existing nucleus; or one in which fibres have appeared to be formed out of nucleated cells; or one in which nucleated cells have appeared to constitute a stage towards any form of higher development. On the contrary, I have found many instances of rapidly growing structures composed of large collections of fibres without a nucleated cell among or near them; others with abundant nucleated cells, but scarcely any free nuclei or granules, and nothing like a cell incompletely developed round its nucleus; and, again, others (and these of especially rapid growth) with no cells at all, but composed almost entirely of corpuscles like nuclei or cytoblasts. From these and other observations I am disposed to think that the ordinary (and not the exceptional) mode of development of fibres is, not through nucleated cells, but from a structureless or dinly granular substance which is first marked, and then broken up, into fibres. There is good evidence that the cytoblasts which are usually or always imbedded in this substance, influence the development of the fibres; and though I cannot tell how they do so, yet it is certainly not by conversion of themselves into fibres; they shrivel and disappear as the fibres increase and become more perfectly formed. I think it will be found that, in morbid growths, the nucleated cell is always a terminal, not a transitional, form; for in certain tumours in which the best formed nucleated cells are found, e. g. the epithelial tumours and some A good evidence of this is in the fact that the most original observers, when they speak of the development of the tissues, almost always cease for the time to be original, and copy both the words and drawings of Schwann or Valentin. examples of medullary cancers, there are no higher forms found, not even imperfect fibro-cellular tissue, except in small quantity about the blood-vessels. Corpuscles having the characters of nuclei or cytoblasts (to adopt still the usual names) appear to be the really energetic bodies in the growth and determination of these morbid structures; they are found in some tumours so abundantly, and so unmixed with nucleated cells, that their power of multiplying and assimilating cannot be doubted; and it is in some of these tumours also that, apparently under the influence of the cytoblasts, the most perfect fibro-cellular tissue is ultimately formed. What I have seen also of the development of these cytoblasts, leads me to agree with that view of the development of nuclei generally, according to which they are described as formed, not on a pre-existent nucleolus, but out of granules collected in a dark or dim mass of the proper size and shape, which then clears up by the formation of a membranous wall and transparent fluid contents with, in some cases, one or more persistent granules holding the position of nucleoli. Anatomy of Nucleated Cells. Although, if the doubts just expressed are well founded, we may have lost the thread for weaving the facts concerning cells into a system, still they must be collected with peculiar interest; for they must at some time be the basis of structural physiology. In the last Report, several observations were mentioned concerning the molecular movements of particles within cells. Additions have been made during the year to the most interesting of these, namely those, such as Dr. Sharpey first observed, in which the movements are regular and in currents analogous to the currents of particles in the chara and other vegetables. Professor Czermak* has described peculiar rotatory movements of particles in certain vesicles attached to the fine extremities of the seminal tubes of the black salamander. The vesicles are either attached to the peritoneal folds connecting the seminal tubes, or are imbedded in the tubes themselves; and the rotatory movements begin as soon as water is brought into contact with them. The vesicles are spherical or oval, from one fiftieth to one seventieth of an inch in diameter, and are covered by an outer layer of polygonal, mutuallyflattened, granular cells. They contain, 1. round, oval, or pear-shaped corpuscles, some of which are not unlike blood-corpuscles, and which vary much in size, but have an average diameter of 1-2000th of an inch. 2. In many of the larger vesicles there is one large corpuscle, not granular, and occupying from one tenth to two thirds of the cavity, the rest of which contains corpuscles like those last described, or crystals. 3. The largest vesicles contain crystals of uncertain nature, alone or with the corpuscles before mentioned. The rotatory movements vary according to the contents of the cells. The smaller corpuscles (of the first kind) move as if cilia within the vesicles impelled them. In some they move from side to side; in others, round their axes; in some, up and down; in some oval vesicles they move along the middle, from one end to the other, backwards and forwards. The movements usually continue for several hours, are accelerated by warmth, and are stopped by drying, or by completely soaking the vesicles in water. The vesicles which contain the larger (second kind of) corpuscles, show a different movement of their contents No ciliæ could be discerned on the large corpuscles, yet the small ones move along their margins just as if cilia seated there impelled them; and the large corpuscles themselves move slowly round their own axes in one constant direction. The nature and mode of generation of the vesicles is quite uneertain; they at first were taken for the ova of entozoa, but the author gives reasons for thinking that they are not, and holds them to be analogous to those which Remak+ found in the mesogastrium of frogs and has described under the name of ciliary vesicles. • Oesterr. Medic. Jahrbucher, Jan. 1845. + Müller's Archiv, 1841, H. v. |