On some rare and new diseases : suggestions for the study of part of the natural history of disease : the Bradshawe lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1882 / by Sir James Paget.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some rare and new diseases : suggestions for the study of part of the natural history of disease : the Bradshawe lecture delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1882 / by Sir James Paget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    recently, though, still rare, they have become more fre- quent. There is, I know, a general unwillingness among pathologists to admit that there are new diseases of this kind; and this unwillingness is often just, for many diseases that may seem new have probably existed long and been overlooked ; they may be new to knowledge, but not new in fact. Bright’s disease and Addison’s disease were new in the sense of having first been well observed and described by those whose names they bear; but no one would venture to say, of diseases so difficult to detect as these used to be, that they did not exist long before they were well observed. We could as well believe that embolism never occurred until just before it was found- out, or that right-side hemiplegia used not to be associated with aphasia. These things were old before they seemed to be new; but how long they had existed neither records nor museums can tell. It would be, indeed, very interesting if we could tell the time and manner of first appearing in the case of many diseases which are now common; but it is scarcely ever possible. And yet, if you will allow me a digression, let me show what in some instances museums may supply, and what I hope they will in the future supply much more largely. Here are specimens of typhoid ulcers of the intestines preserved by Hunter.1 Few things have been more important in the knowledge of fevers than the clear proofs of the distinction between typhus and typhoid given by Sir William Jenner in 1850. It was one of the best life-saving discoveries of this century; before it, both 1 Nos. 1214-5-7-8, anrl 1242 (Catal. 1848). Two of them, 1217 and 1242, are represented in Baillie’s Morbid Anatomy, Fasc. iv. p. ii. tigs. 3, 4. The College Catalogue (Ed. 1848, vol iii. pp. 90, 91) contains interest- ing observations on the intestinal glands from Hunter’s MSS. Other two of the specimens represented by Baillie are in Dr. William Hunter’s Museum,