A treatise on varicose capillaries : as constituting the structure of carcinoma of the hepatic ducts, and developing the law and treatment of morbid growths, with an account of a new form of the pus globule / by Thomas Gordon Hake.

  • Hake, Thomas Gordon, 1809-1895.
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on varicose capillaries : as constituting the structure of carcinoma of the hepatic ducts, and developing the law and treatment of morbid growths, with an account of a new form of the pus globule / by Thomas Gordon Hake. 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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    Mr. Kiernan “ fully explained” to me that preparation of“ varicose capillaries,” or even used, or assented, to that term when employed by me', I unhesitatingly deny. The real fact is, that he was ob- stinately taciturn, and that whatever remarks were made came from me, with the exception of such as alluded to the beauty of the object, or the success of the injection. The assertions which follow in Mr. Kiernan’s letter relate to the subject of my researches ; I will therefore pass over them for the present, and examine his letter to Mr. Powell, as well as the re- ply- The only important part of that letter is contained inthissentence—“Dr. Hake now claims what I then showed him as a discovery of his own, and is about to make it public.” In reply to this ac- cusation,! beg distinctly to affirm that I never made, such claim, orhad such in- tention ; but, on the contrary, at my last meeting with Mr. Kiernan, and before he wrote to Mr. Powell, I told him that I would publicly admit having seen his “ preparation of intestine” before having entered on my preseut investigation. Since then I have seen this disease in the intestine, but I fairly admit having first seen it in Mr. Kiernan’s preparation : not that it was new to me, for I had previously seen aneurismal * capillaries in the spleen. Mr. Powell, in his reply to Mr. Kier- nan’s letter, says, “during the time (which was about an hour and a half) that Dr. Hake was examini ng it (the preparation) with the microscope, you pointed out several different parts to him, one of which you said was disease in its most incipient state. Dr. Hake said he could sit and look at it all night, and wondered you had not published it. He thought if you did not do so, it was likely some one would do it before yrou ; and he added, he would be as silent as the grave.” I have already stated how long- T looked at this preparation, which, al- though it showed no principle, but only a disease of capillaries in a particular structure, I admired as a microscopic object, but expressed no more admira- tion than I had done on examining the circulation in an aquatic plant, which I * It may be suggested that I am indebted to Mr. Gerrard’s letter for this expression; I there- fore state that my work, in which this term oc- curs, was printed,and in the hands of Mr. Liston, before that letter appeared. had looked at for a much longer time that evening, and which Mr. Powell was absorbed in while Mr. Kiernan and myself were viewing the intestine. But Mr. Kiernan did not point out “ diffe- rent parts,” one-of which was illustrative of disease in its “ incipient state,” as Mr. Powell intends to imply : he only moved the preparation to show the pails which w'ere injected. He said that he had preparations illustrative of the dif- ferent stages of disease, which led me to remark that I w'ondered he did not publish them, for the Germans and French were hard at work, ana, if there was any thing to be found out, they would succeed. To this Mr. Kiernan replied, that no one living could find out what he had done — it was ut- terly impossible : to which I rejoined, that the human mind was sufficiently alike in all men, and that one could ob- serve as well as another, if he had but the industry to work ; and these were the sentiments which I repeated to Mr. Powell while walking homewards in company with that optician. Some weeks after this the diseased liver of a rabbit was sent to me bj’ my poulterer, who had been in the habit of supplying me with various things for dissection. This liver was covered with what appeared abscesses. I examined the purulent matter which the cavities contained, and found that it consisted principally of ovate bodies—a form of pus which I had never before seen. Being satisfied, from this examination, that the disease was of more than usual interest, I took the liver to Mr. Kiernan, and stated to him that a disease had fallen under my observation, which probably would especially interest him, the liver being his subject, and request- ed him to accept it as an addition to his collection. He replied, that he was acquainted with the nature of the dis- ease—he had sect) it in the mouse and other animals—that, in fact, it consisted of abscesses. I continued, that I should like to show him the pus of these ab- scesses, as it presented remarkable cha- racters. After a time we placed a small quantity of the fluid under the micro- scope. The first glance at it arrested his entire attention. “This,” he said, “ is wonderful; this is a discovery.' I advise you by all means to work it out, I dare say, he said, I have some of it in my collection, but when I was col- lecting these fluids, I had not a micro- scope. You should call on the person