On the artificial production of tubercle in the lower animals : a lecture delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, May 15, 1868 / by Wilson Fox.

  • Fox, Wilson.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the artificial production of tubercle in the lower animals : a lecture delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, May 15, 1868 / by Wilson Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/50 (page 3)
    ra1)bit.' Ilis results were submitted to a committee of the Society, who, after examination, expressed their conviction that the disease thus produced was similar to Avliat is ordinarily received as tubercle in man. At tliat meeting, and subsequently at the Croonian Lectures, Dr. Andrew Clark made the important statement, that he had succeeded in producing the same results as could be obtained by the inoculation of tubercle by using otlicr non- tuberculous pathological products, but expressed some doubts whetlier the disease so produced corresponded to tubercle in man; and Mr. Barwell also stated that he had observed what appeared to be tubercles in the lungs of rabbits who had suffered from injuries to their bones. A little later in the same year M. Villemin's researches were confirmed by Professor Hoffman and M. Genondet; and Dr. Marcet, in a paper read before the Pboyal Medical and Chirurgical Society, pro^iosed to use the sputa of patients as a means of diagnosis of tubercular disease. These statements appeared to me to involve questions of the utmost importance, and I determined to take an early opportunity to carry out a series of experiments as to the effects of different morbid materials introduced under the skin of ra1)bits and guinea-pigs in the same manner as M. Villemin had conducted his inquiry with tubercle. I commenced my experiments in July 18G7, but found, at the time wlicn I was beginning, that a distinguished Pellow of this College, Dr. Sanderson, had shortly before instituted a series of experiments with the same object. I did not know what was the precise line of his investigation. The question also appeared to me to be involved in so much obscurity and doubt, seeing that, with the exception of two cases of Dr. Andrew Clark, the experiments hitherto made seemed to show that tubercle alone when inoculated was capable of producing either tubercle or a disease resembling tubercle,-— a conclusion which must modify the whole of our views of the pathological nature of this disease,—that I considered myself justified in continuing tlie independent inquiry which I had marked out. It has proved that, within a few Avecks of one another, perfectly inde- pendent and without any knowledge of each other's results. Dr. Sanderson and I have arrived at the same conclusion. A similar result has also been recently obtained by Dr. Waldenburg.'' Dr. Sanderson and I have both found that non-tubercular substances introduced under the skin of guinea-pigs 1 Patli. Soc. Trans., vol. xvii. JlcJical Times and Gazette, 1SC7, pp. 3GG, 429. 2 ]Med.-Cliir. Trans., vol. 1. « Allg. Medicin. Cent. Zeitung, Doc. U, 18G7. Dr. Waldenburg's paper only came into my liand.=; after my own experiments were coniiilcted.