Encysted osseous tumors, or a thin secreting membranous cyst : developed in cancellous structure of bone and surrounded by a thin bony wall / by Alden March.

  • March, Alden, 1795-1869.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Encysted osseous tumors, or a thin secreting membranous cyst : developed in cancellous structure of bone and surrounded by a thin bony wall / by Alden March. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    It is inferred that the disease is of rare occurrence, since the venerable and widely and justly celebrated New-England sur- geon, Dr. John C. Warren, does not allude to such a form of dis- ease, or tumor of the bones, even in his voluminous work on Tumors; and also from the fact that most other modern au- thors, with the exception of Dupuytren, have passed the subject by with but little more than a casual remark,if noticed at all, as will be observed from the quotations that will follow. It is said that names are arbitrary, and therefore anyone has a right to appropriate to himself, or to any object around him, such a name as he may think proper. And yet in science a name should convey to the mind some definite idea of the thing or object itself. A name, then, ought not to be regarded as an unmeaning thing. The multiplicity of names and synonyms in our profession are apt to embarrass and lead to mistaken notions of the real thing or disease which it is intended to designate. Sir Astley Cooper illustrates the folly and absurdity of multiply- ing names to express the same structure by the following re- marks and anecdote. In giving some of the synonyms of malig- nant disease of the testis, he remarks, A multiplicity of names to distinguish the same thing is always a disadvantage, nor can I better point out the folly of such a nomenclature than by quo- ting the expression of a learned judge, who in trying a medical case, heard one evidence (witness) speak of cellular membrane; a second, cellular tissue; and a third, of reticular membrane; 1 What!' said his lordship,' three names for the same structure ! how absurd—how confusing !' In the judgment of the writer, the true policy in the selection and use of a name should be to employ that which conveys the best idea of the appearances and nature of the disease or tumor under examination. It is to be presumed that shades of difference, in the physical and organic character of tumors, have given rise to different names for essentially the same tumor or disease, with which our standard works on surgery abound.