EXUDATIONS. 121 



methods employed for quantitative separation until the chemical 

 constituents of the cerebral and nervous matter shall have been 

 determined with much greater exactness. 



[I have just received a copy of a Memoir by von Bibra, 

 entitled " Comparative Investigations of the Brain of Man and the 

 Mammalia;"* his principal conclusions will be given in a note to 

 Appendix. Much interesting matter upon the subjects discussed 

 in this section will also be found in Schlossberger's Memoir on 

 the Nervous System in his fe First Attempt at a General and Com- 

 parative Animal Chemistry/' f which is now in the course of 

 publication. G. E. D.] 



EXUDATIONS AND PATHOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 



WE have often had occasion to comment upon the inefficiency 

 and imperfection of our chemical knowledge, when compared with 

 the great expectations which have been entertained in respect to its 

 applications to physiology and pathology; yet there is scarcely any 

 subject which more thoroughly calls for a confession of our weak- 

 ness and incapacity than the one we are now about to consider. The 

 exudations constitute the most important object of zoo-chemical 

 investigation in reference to pathology, and the whole scope of 

 pathological anatomy may be said to consist in the study of these 

 structures and their different metamorphoses. But whilst patho- 

 logical morphology may be said to have already reached a very 

 high degree of development, the chemistry of morbid structures is 

 still very obscure. The history of the development of pathological 

 forms has contributed very little to clear up these difficulties, not- 

 withstanding the great advance which this branch of science has 

 made in recent times ; and it is an undeniable fact that in the case 

 of many pathological forms we are wholly ignorant whether we 

 have before us the beginning or the end of the process, the first 

 formation, or the last stage of disintegration. The science of 

 pathological histology, which alone can guide the chemist, is so 

 full of uncertainties, subjective conceptions, and varying con- 



* Vergleichende Untersuclmngen iiber das Gehirn des Menschen uud der 

 Wirbelthiere. Von Dr. Freiherrn Ernst von Bibra. Mannheim, 1854. 



t Erster Versuch einer allgemeinen und vergleichenden Thier chemie. 

 Von Julius Eugen Schlossberger. Erste Lieferuug. Stuttgart, 1854. 



