The microscopic anatomy of the human body in health and disease (Volume 2).

  • Hassall, Arthur Hill, 1817-1894.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The microscopic anatomy of the human body in health and disease (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. After three years of more or less constant labour, the welcome and often-wished- for period of the completion of this work has arrived, and the author is at liberty to address himself to his readers, and to explain the motives and the circumstances which have led to its production. The idea of this work presented itself to the author's mind several years since; it was not, however, until about the period above referred to, that its actual execution was commenced. At the time when its design was first conceived, the powers of the microscope in developing organic structure were but beginning to be known and appreciated, and the importance of its application to physiology and pathology was but dimly perceived. At that period, also, but few complete works devoted to microscopic anatomy had appeared in any language, native or foreign; more recently this deficiency, as res- pects France and Germany, has been well supplied by the appearance of several original works, as those of Donne, Mandl, Lebert, Miiller, Henle, Vogel, Gerber, and Wagner; England, however, has not as yet contributed her share of distinct and independent works on general anatomy: not that our observers have been idle, or have neglected a field of inquiry so interesting and important, resting satisfied with mere translations: a whole host of intelligent and able microscopists have applied themselves to the investigation of the ultimate structure of the several tissues and organs, and this with a preeminent degree of success. Among the more remarkable of these investigators, the following may be enumerated: Gulliver, Martin Barry, Busk, Addison, Kiernan, Sharpey, Goodsir, Tomes, Toynbee, Johnson, Simon, Todd and Bowman, Quekett, Erasmus Wilson, Hughes Bennet, Carpenter, Rainey, Hand- field Jones, and Gairdner. The results of the labours of these observers have not as yet, however, been embodied in a separate work; but some of them have been mixed up with works on descriptive anatomy and physiology, as in Sharpey's edition of Quain's Anatomy, in Carpenter's Principles and Manual of Physiology, and in Todd and Bowman's Physiological Anatomy. The last is an admirable book, full of original research and important facts. Now, one of the purposes, the accomplishment of which has been attempted in the following pages, has been the collecting together of the numerous communications on general anatomy to be found scattered through the pages of our different scientific periodicals, and their combination into a whole. The further objects which the author has had in view in the production of this work have been simplicity of description, fidelity of representation, and the addition of siith facts and particulars as have occurred to himself in the course of his own investigations: and he may take this opportunity of observing, that in but few instances has he written upon a subject without previous investigation.