274 Mr. H. G. Seelej on the Origin 



Mr. Hawkins refers to some curious cases in which muscle 

 becomes changed into bone by a simple inflammatory action. 

 Thus a surgeon in the Prussian army found that in 18 out of 

 600 recruits there was a swelling of the deltoid and pectoral 

 muscles in front of the shoulder, due to the pressure and irri- 

 tation induced by first carrying the musket, and that in these 

 cases pieces of bone were deposited, from 2^ to 7 inches long, 

 which were removed by operation. He mentions the case of 

 a boy in whom the least blow would cause an exostosis or 

 ossification of a muscle or ligament ; and, finally, details a 

 case where his patient, after getting wet, became liable to 

 painful swellings which eventually became the seats of ossifi- 

 cation. One such bone, between the rhomboid and trapezius, 

 and extending from the scapula to about the sixth vertebra, 

 was removed : it had the microscopic and chemical charac- 

 teristics of true bone, consisted to a small extent of cartilage, 

 had the usual dense outer shell, which was covered with peri- 

 osteum, into which the muscular fibres were inserted, as in 

 natural bone. And Sir J. Paget refers to a specimen in the 

 College of Surgeons in which nearly all the muscles of the 

 back were ossified. He supposes that the osseous deposit 

 originally took place in the connective tissue, and by its growth 

 through pressure produced atrophy and destruction of the 

 proper muscular substance. Ossification of the ligaments is 

 very common among all animals ; and Mr. Hawkins refers to 

 numerous ossific deposits in the cellular tissue behind the 

 pleura, and to a case in which the lungs have great masses of 

 bone in them, occupying at least a third of their bulk. And 

 a case was recorded by Dr. Allbut in which the lung was full 

 of well-developed bones. 



The other normal tissue which is commonly produced in 

 the body by disease is fat. This, to a considerable extent, may 

 replace all the muscles and all the bones. In one case, all 

 that remained of the upper part of a femur, after boiling, is 

 described as scarce any thing besides a great quantity of white 

 crystalline fatty matter. Occasionally the bones lose their 

 osseous matter without any fatty substitution. 



These pathological illustrations of variety in growth have 

 their chief interest in the proved hereditary character of dis- 

 ease (often symmetrical). In the case of fatty degeneration, 

 from that condition supervening as a consequence of inac- 

 tivity, it is suggestive, as showing the way in which struc- 

 tures which are no longer or less used may be got out of the 

 body, perhaps not in one but in successive generations. Even 

 the heart reduces its size in accord with the amount of blood 

 which it has to circulate. The bones in the individual, ac- 



