An inaugural dissertation on organogeny : submitted to the dean and faculty of the Medical College of the State of South-Carolina for the degree of M.D., and recommended by the medical committee for publication / by Myddelton Michel.

  • Michel, Middleton, 1822-1894.
Date:
1846
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation on organogeny : submitted to the dean and faculty of the Medical College of the State of South-Carolina for the degree of M.D., and recommended by the medical committee for publication / by Myddelton Michel. 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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    Before such examples then it must be inferred, and my san- guine expectations encourage the belief, that Organogeny will furnish to the pathologist much light, but to the comparative anatomist the criterion of all future zoological inquiries. These remarks, already protracted to an unusual length, should perhaps end here; but we would consider our plan de fective were we to omit recognizing the greatest achievement which this science has effected. A motive of interest possibly induces me to enter upon these further considerations, as in my researches on the evolution of the ovum in some of the mam- malia, I have kept this feature always in view ; and though it be not my intention to anticipate the contents of a forthcoming publication, we will dwell with pleasing satisfaction on a sub- ject which is now the theme of European debate. We allude to the histological theories of development. Pursuing the train of thought which determined the foregoing facts, we may almost anticipate the result which further inquiries have attained. When the morphological conditions of embryonic life were ascertained, the very law which they established involved an inference which in its turn has disclosed the most, remarkable phenomenon hitherto observed, inasmuch as it has given the physiologist the key of his science with which he may lock up the apparent unconnected operations of vitality under one great principle, or open to view that law which reveals their mutual dependency upon each other. Mtiller observes that physiology had progressed to a surprising extent by the concurrent labors of many, but states that the fundamental principle was yet entirely wanting upon which these extended and finished re- searches should rest, and with this physiologist we regard a discovery of this peculiar kind as of more general importance to the study of physiology than any hitherto made. The parallelism in the transitory stages of various embryos was such, that the common origin, which once established, served to detect them, was no longer considered sufficient to explain them. That all beings originated from an ovum, and that this was of seeming identity through the entire animal series, led to deductions the full import of which we have carefully examined, but that nature, with different ends in view, should systemati- cally pursue a parallelism in her operations of striking sameness, was a phenomenon that could not but excite curiosity, and it was imagined that the formative process of development was possibly the same throughout the animal kingdom. To Schwann appertains the discovery which confirmed this. He clearly demonstrated the primitive trace of animal organization to be a cell; basing thereon, 1. A complete theory of development; 2. A law of histogenesis or mode of formation of the cell. Our