A lecture introductory to the course on the practice of medicine : delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital, at the commencement of the session 1842-3 / by Dr. Hodgkin.

  • Hodgkin, Thomas, 1798-1866.
Date:
1842]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture introductory to the course on the practice of medicine : delivered at St. Thomas's Hospital, at the commencement of the session 1842-3 / by Dr. Hodgkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    view a most interesting and numerous class of infusory ani- mals, possessing peculiar and complicated organization. He has not merely figured the multitude of species which make almost every drop of stagnant water teem with animal life, but has shewn that entire strata, of sufficient extent to excite geological interest, are made up of the fossil remains of these minute creatures. Valentin and Purkinjee have followed up what Baer began, in regard to the obscure subject of the earliest periods of embryonic life; but even their researches have been surpassed by those of my friend Dr. Martin Barry, which, as I have already stated, have obtained for him the gold medal of the Royal Society. But his researches are only now in the course of progress; and his labours are not only directed to embryology, but also to the most obscure points in the structure of elementary tissues. His attention is in a particular manner directed to the blood: in connec- tion with which subject, I must not omit to mention the rich collection of facts obtained by my friend G. Gulliver; who has examined and described the particles of the blood in very many species of animals, and has further enriched this branch of science by the publication of a translation of Jerber, with valuable additions of his own, regarding the micro- scopic characters of most of the tissues, and many of the secretions, produced in health and disease. It is perfectly obvious that these last researches bear directly upon our acquaintance with the various forms of disease ; enabling us to distinguish mucus, pus, tuberculous matter, cancerous and fungoid matter when broken down to a soft and puriform state, and also the material filling the cells of colloid or gela- tiniform cancer. We may even distinguish these several substances, though blended with each other; and thus arrive at distinctions which would defy the skill of the most expert organic chemists. In alluding to the researches of microscopic observers, I must again call your attention to Dr. Leeson; who, though he has not as yet published any thing on the subject, has spared neither pains nor expense in the pursuit of it; and has been more successful than any other individual in exhibiting, by the aid of the oxy-hydrogen microscope, some of those ex- tremely minute points of structural anatomy which had