Chap. XXVII. OF PANGENESIS. 365 



*' muscular fibre-cell leads a sort of parasitical existence in 



" relation to the rest of the body Every single bone- 



*' corpuscle really possesses conditions of nutrition peculiar to 

 *' itself." Each element, as Sir J. Paget remarks, lives its 

 appointed time and then dies, and is replaced after being 

 cast off" or absorbed.^^ I presume that no physiologist doubts 

 that, for instance, each bone-corpuscle of the finger differs 

 from the corresponding corpuscle in the corresponding joint 

 of the toe ; and there can hardly be a doubt that even those 

 on the corresponding sides of the body differ, though almost 

 identical in nature. This near approach to identity is 

 curiously shown in many diseases in which the same exact 

 points on the right and left sides of the body are similarly 

 affected ; thus Sir J. Paget ^^ gives a drawing of a diseased 

 pelvis, in which the bone has grown into a most complicated 

 pattern, but " there is not one spot or line on one side which 

 *' is not represented, as exactly as it would be in a mirror, on 

 " the other." 



Many facts support this view of the independent life of 

 each minute element of the body. Yirchow insists that a 

 single bone-corpuscle or a single cell in the skin may become 

 diseased. The spur of a cock, after being inserted into the 

 ear of an ox, lived for eight years, and acquired a weight of 

 396 grammes (nearly fourteen ounces), and the astonishing 

 leng-th of twenty-four centimetres, or about nine inches ; so 

 that the head of the ox appeared to bear three horns.-^' The 

 tail of a pig has been grafted into the middle of its back, and 

 reacquired sensibility. Dr. Oilier ^^ inserted a piece of perios- 

 teum from the bone of a young dog under the skin of a rabbit, 

 and true bone was developed. A multitude of similar facts 

 could be given. 1"he frequent presence of hairs and of per- 

 fectly developed teeth, even teeth of the second dentition, in 

 ovarian tumours,^^ are facts leading to the same conclusion. 



^^ Paget. ' Surgical Pathology,' des Os,' p. 8. 



vol. i., 1853, pp. I'i-U. 39 Isidore GeofTroy Saint-Hilaire, 



3® Ibid., p. 19. 'Hist, des Anomalies,* torn. ii. pp. 



'' See Prof. Mantegazza's interest- 549, 560, 562 ; Virchow, ibid., p. 



ing work, ' Degli iunesti Animali,' &c., 484. Lawson Tait, ' The Pathology of 



Milano, 1865, p. 51, tab. 3. Diseases of the Ovaries,' 1874, pp. 61, 



" 'De la Production Artificielle 62. 



