250 i>\ THE CHANGES OCCURRING IN 



blood-vessels of the adjacent living structures, there 

 are, I must confess, to my mind, great difficulties in 

 accepting as final that solution of the mystery. 



I have been tempted thus cursorily to review the 

 changes occurring in organs wholly or partially 

 deprived of their vitality, from the circumstance of 

 my having been engaged at intervals, during the last 

 ten years, in researches bearing upon this subject, 

 the results of which are in general accordance with 

 the views now adopted by many of the most distin- 

 guished pathologists in this country and on the Con- 

 tinent ; and notwithstanding the flood of light cast 

 upon the origin and nature of many of the morbid 

 changes in question by the laborious investigations 

 of those able observers, I hope to be excused for 

 adducing even a small amount of concurrent testi- 

 mony, which, as regards one form of degeneration, 

 would appear to carry the inquiry a step further. 



In 1843, this Society did me the honour to publish, 

 in its Transactions, an account of some experimental 

 researches communicated through the kindness of 

 Dr. Marshall Hall, and having for their object the 

 investigation of the immediate or primary eifects of 

 obstructed circulation in the kidney. These experi- 

 ments have since been repeated by Frerichs, and my 

 results confirmed by his more extended observations. 

 I have also since applied the principles thence de- 

 duced to the explanation of the pathology and the- 

 rapeutics of the earlier stages of inilummation, in a 

 series of papers published in the " London Medical 

 (iazettc." But a prolonged observation of the se- 

 condary changes exhibited by the organs 



