On the treatment of deafness : connected with enlargement of the tonsils and other diseases of the throat, and on the consequences arising from the removal of those glands / by William Harvey.

  • Harvey, William, 1807-1876.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of deafness : connected with enlargement of the tonsils and other diseases of the throat, and on the consequences arising from the removal of those glands / by William Harvey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/148 (page 15)
    1, during the embryonic and foetal states; 2, the history of their development from the period of birth to extreme old age. What we know of the first—that is, their embry- onic condition, is, that they are situated in the line of direction of the first branchial arches, immediately below the cephalic bulb; that this also is the position of the Eustachian tubes, usually considered as the unclosed extremities of these arches; but the history of their progress from birth to old age has not been clearly traced, whilst the facts derived from comparative anatomy, as in the case of the supra-renal capsules, thyroid and thymus glands, the spleen, and some other organs, lead to no deci- sive conclusions. When physiologists have failed in ascertaining the functions of a part by direct observation, they, since Galen's time, have attempted to obtain the know- ledge by another mode; they remove the organ from the body, hoping by an indirect and negative method to discover the truth. Whatever may be the function of the part, it ought to cease, say they, on its total removal. This is a rather coarse way of experimenting, but in some instances it has led to sound and correct views; the removal, for example, of the preparatory male organs decides the nature of their function. With reference to other organs the method has entirely failed, and as regards the organs we now speak of—the tonsils—the records of surgery,