Retrospect of the progress of surgery during the last decade / by Maurice Henry Collis.

  • Collis, Maurice H. (Maurice Henry), 1824-1869.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Retrospect of the progress of surgery during the last decade / by Maurice Henry Collis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the words of Grove,a “ Causation is the will, creation the act of God.” The deduction of the various forms of life from a common type forms the basis of the theories of Darwinb and of Freke,c and may be found in a more practical form in almost every page of Virchow's Cellular Pathology. In the 27th page of this work, as translated by Dr. Chance, we find the following exposition of the doctrine :— “At the present time, neither fibres, nor globules, nor elementary granules, can be looked upon as histological starting-points. As long as living elements were conceived to be formed out of parts previously destitute of shape, such as formative fluids (plastic matter, blastema cytoblastema), any one of the above views could, of course, be enter¬ tained ; but it is in this very particular that the revolution, which the last few years have brought with them, has been most marked. Even in pathology we can now go so far as to establish, as a general principle, that no development of any hind begins de novo; and consequently as to reject the theory of equivocal (spontaneous) generation just as much in the history of the development of individual parts, as ive do in that of entire organisms; just as little as we can now admit that a tsenia can arise out of a saburral mucous, or that, out of the residue of the decomposition of animal or vegetable matter, an infusorial animalcule, a fungus, or an alga, can be formed; equally little are we disposed to concede either in physiological or pathological histology, that a new cell can build itself up out of any non-cellular substance. Where a cell arises, there a cell must have previously existed (omnis cellula a cellula), just as an animal can spring only from an animal, a plant only from a plant. In this manner, although there are still a few spots in the body whei*e absolute demon¬ stration has not yet been afforded, the principle is, nevertheless, estab¬ lished, that in the whole series of living things, whether they be entire plants, or animal organisms, or essential constituents of the same, an eternal law of continuous development prevails. There is no discontinuity of development, of such a kind that a new generation can of itself give rise to a new series of developmental forms. No developed tissues can be traced back either to any large or small element, unless it be unto a cell.” In this doctrine of omnis cellula a cellula is contained the germ of the advances of both sound physiology and pathology. Virchow has elaborated the doctrine in its multitudinous bearings upon the healthy and morbid actions of the human body. One by one he has taken the various constituent elements of the tissues, and has traced them a Correlation of Physical Forces, by W. R. Grove, Q.C. b Darwin on the Origin of Species. 1860. c Freke on the Origin of Species. 1861. I must not be understood as expressing any opinion on these theories. I have merely referred to them as expressions of prevalent opinions.