244 



formed on the secreting surface, in virtue of some plastic 

 power of the fluids which are effused upon it." 



Waller thought to have proved^ by this experiment on the 

 tongue the perforation of the walls of the vessels which seemed 

 so improbable to the physiologist, and opposed, therefore, the 

 doctrine, then in favour, of the formation of pus-cells in blas- 

 tema. The opposition had no success, and Waller's statement 

 fell into oblivion. The doctrine of cell formation in exuda- 

 tions waSj indeed, soon given up in general, but this did not 

 happen in consequence of Waller's inquiries. It Avas the 

 researches of Goodsir," liedfern,^ and Vircliow that produced 



* It will certainly be of interest to the reader to learn iu what way- 

 Waller contrived to prove this. I will satisfy this interest with the follow- 

 ing note: — In the essay beginning with page 271 (loc. cit.) Waller 

 represents a frog v/rapped up in a piece of stuff, the tongue of which is 

 pulled out and fastened down by pins. Such an experiment he had com- 

 municated previously to Donne, and when the latter made use of this 

 experiment without naming the author, Waller brought a lawsuit against 

 liim for damages. 



To the second treatise, beginning with page 398, a plate is added, from 

 which it may easily be seen that Waller has done more tlian his contempo- 

 raries suspected. The drawings are so very much enlarged that it seems 

 wonderful that Waller could see so much in so restless an animal. 

 But the representations are so true to nature that the exactness of his 

 observations cannot be doubted. Several vessels are stopped up with stag- 

 nant blood, and two are filled with only a few blood-corpuscles ; in the 

 former you recognise plainly the colourless blood-corpuscles, as the outlines 

 of the red ones are not marked ; in one of the two last-mentioned vessels 

 you see two minute spheres separated by the outline representing the vas- 

 cular wall ; heaps of colourless blood-corpuscles adhere in different places 

 to the outside of those vessels, filled with stagnant blood. Waller expresses 

 himself, in reference to the best case in which this is seen, as follows : — " In 

 some instances the manner in which the corpuscle escaped from the interior 

 of the tube could be distinctly followed, that part of the tube in contact 

 with the external side of the corpuscle gradually disappeared, and at nearly 

 the same time might be seen the formation of a distinct line of demarcation 

 between the inner segment of the corpuscle and the fluid parts of the blood 

 in contact with it." 



It is plainly to be seen that Waller was well aware what he was going to 

 prove, and the priority of the discovery must doubtless be attributed to him. 

 But in so far as 1 recognise tlie difficulty of a distinct assertion of the per- 

 foration of vessel-walls, I must insist upon the fact that neither Waller's 

 drawings nor assertions were capable of inspiring confidence in this difficult 

 question. I did not allow myself to form any definite conclusion until I had 

 been able in the curariscd animal to follow the very same corpuscles sticking 

 in, and then passing through, the vessel-wall. As long as this is not the 

 case it might always be suggested that one was dealing with two bodies, one 

 adhering to the outside, the other to the inside, of the vascular wall ; but 

 such an engnlBng (of the blood-cell in the vascular wall) has Waller neither 

 described nor drawn, nor could I gather from his statements that he really 

 followed the whole act of the squeezing through, though the passage just 

 cited refers to such a process. 



' ' Anatomical and Pathological Observations.' 



^ 'On Anormal Nutrition in Articular Cartilages.' Edinburgh, 1849. 



