Observations on the structure and development of bone / by John Tomes and Campbell de Morgan.

  • Tomes, John, 1815-1895.
Date:
[1853]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the structure and development of bone / by John Tomes and Campbell de Morgan. 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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    / IV. Observations on the Structure and Development of Bone. By John Tomes, F.R.S., Surgeon-Dentist to the Middlesex Hospital, and Campbell De Morgan, Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. Received April 22,—Read June 10, 1852. The structure and development of bone is a subject which has occupied the attention of physiologists both of present and past times, and holds a prominent place in their writings. From the time of Clopton Havers, who was the first to point out the vascular canals in bone, and whose name they have since borne, to the year 1850, when M. Kolliker’s elaborate work on Structural Anatomy appeared, physiological writers have dwelt at considerable length on this branch of their subject. All have, however, concluded with the admission that more remained to be learned before this important structure could be regarded as fully understood*. It is the purpose of the authors in this communication, to lay before the Royal Society the results of an extended series of observations on the structure and development of bone. Such of these results as are novel might, perhaps, be de- scribed without reference to those points which are already well known. It will, however, be seen, in the subsequent pages, that they are in themselves, and in their relations to osseous tissue and its development, as well as to structural anatomy generally, of such a nature, as would hardly admit of an intelligible description apart from some consideration of the whole subject. Hence it will be necessary to point out the relations between that which is already known, and that which it is the special purpose of this paper to communicate, and it is proposed to consider the details of the subject as they present themselves in the progress of investigation with but little reference to authorities, adding in the form of notes, those statements which require acknowledgement, either as agreeing with, or as being opposed to, the views advanced in this paper. In treating of the structure of bone, it is convenient to commence by describing the appearances which a thin transverse section from the shaft of an adult long bone presents when placed in the field of a microscope having a magnifying power of from 200 to 300 linear. In addition to the large central space which corresponds to the medullary cavity of the bone, the section is seen to be perforated by numerous small apertures, each of which is surrounded by a series of laminae of osseous tissue concentrically arranged. Lying amongst the laminae are many small cavities, from which minute tubes radiate. These were called bone-corpuscles by Purkinje, who * Mikroskopische Anatomie, von Dr. A. Kolliker. Leipzig, 1850, MDCCCLIII. Q