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NA TURE 



\yuly 18, 1889 



arrangements. We would not, however, seem ungrateful ; 

 tather let us hope that the future parts of this volume, 

 though deprived of the care of the great palaeontologist, 

 may be equally fruitful of new and interesting facts, and 

 that, in the hands of Dr. Waagen, they may, no less than 

 this one, add still fresh lustre to the name of Barrande. 



TEXT-BOOK OF PATHOLOGY. 



Text- book of Pathology. By Prof. D.J. Hamilton. Pp. 

 719. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1889.) 



ABROAD, it is usual for a pathologist to devote his 

 whole life and energy to one subject, and to pay 

 little or no attention to the clinical side of disease, con- 

 centrating all his attention on the anatomical and histo- 

 logical aspect. This system has both its advantages and 

 its defects. As his future success in life depends solely 

 upon his reputation as a pathologist, he is stimulated to 

 write frequently and much ; and one practical outcome 

 is a large number of books, in both German and French, 

 on pathology. These are of very varying excellence, 

 some being mere compilations of the current standard 

 works, while a few represent the results of a mature ex- 

 perience. For naked-eye pathology, English students have 

 an unequalled work in Wilks and Moxon's "Pathology," 

 of which a third edition has recently appeared. Morbid 

 histology is a science of comparatively recent date, and 

 English authors have hitherto confined themselves to 

 writing short manuals for students, which have been 

 supplemented by translations of the more elaborate 

 foreign works. 



This " Pathology" is the first English book which has 

 attempted, in its completeness, to compete with the larger 

 Continental works, and as it is the outcome of several 

 years' experience, of one who is already well known for 

 the original work he has published on many of the ques- 

 tions, it will meet with a hearty welcome. The author 

 takes a very wide view of pathology, and includes under 

 this term morbid anatomy, pathological histology, physics, 

 chemistry, and comparative pathology. Theoretically, 

 this is undoubtedly right ; but it is extremely inconvenient, 

 when a book is overweighted by collateral subjects ; and 

 we think the author would be well advised in a future 

 edition, to omit the chapters on bacteriology and on the 

 experiments which he conducted to illustrate the circula- 

 tion of the blood. The greater portion of the informa- 

 tion on bacteriology is of necessity a repetition of what 

 is given in any text-book on the subject, and is therefore 

 superfluous, except for the purpose of making the book 

 theoretically complete. The experiments on the circulation 

 should be relegated to a book on physiology. 



The book commences with a very full account of the 

 method of making a sectio cadaveri, with which we would 

 in the main agree. Our experience, however, is entirely 

 opposed to the separation of the heart from the lungs in 

 the body, as he directs. We believe much more may, in 

 a difficult case, be made out if the lungs and heart be re- 

 moved, and examined together, the amount of blood in the 

 various cavities of the heart having been previously noted. 

 One of the most valuable portions of the book is that 

 which deals with the preparation of specimens for the 



museum and for microscopical examination. For the 

 preservation of intestines and other delicate tissues as- 

 jar-specimens in a museum, the author recommends a 

 saturated solution of boracic acid ; and for eyes, brain, 

 &c., glycerine jelly. Full details are given for the pre- 

 paration of large sections of the brain by the gelatine- 

 potash method devised by the author, by which he has 

 been able to uniformly expand the sections, so as to more 

 readily show the course t3f the various bundles of fibres. 



The middle third of the book is occupied by a discus- 

 sion of general pathological processes. The phenomena of" 

 inflammation are very fully discussed, and the author gives 

 a good rhunie of the views now held on the subject, and 

 also of his own conclusions. He considers the blo9d-. 

 pressure to be the cause of the extrusion of the cor- 

 puscles which occurs in inflammation. In discussing the 

 phenomena of inflammation of the cornea, he concludes 

 that at first there is an influx into the cornea, which 

 distends the canals and breaks up the endothslial plates ; 

 as a consequence, the so-called branching cells of ^he 

 cornea, which were really the liquid in the plasma spaces, 

 disappear ; at the same time the nuclei of the endothelial 

 plates proliferate. The fusiform nuclei which used to be 

 looked upon as the nuclei of the branching cells, he con- 

 siders to be the nuclei of the fibrous bundles, and as these 

 run in laminae of parallel bundles, which lie at right angles 

 to those of the adjacent laminae, the so-called spear- 

 head bodies are formed by their proUferation, The 

 pus comes both from the connective tissue corpuscles 

 and from leucocytes. In granulation tissue, the author 

 holds that the capillary vessels are mainly old capillary 

 loops from the subjacent tissue, which have been pushed 

 up by the pressure of the blood inside them, when the 

 tense surface of epithelium has been destroyed ; and 

 he draws attention to the absence of granulations in a 

 wound on the pleura or peritoneum where the_ surface pres- 

 sure is still kept up, and considers that the vessels found, 

 when the pores of a piece of sponge applied to a wound 

 become vascularized, are at first not new vessels, ^ut 

 those of the tissue which have pushed up into the 

 pores. 



The third part deals with the diseases of the various 

 organs and tissues. Some interesting facts are given as 

 to the means by which tubercle may be spread : — 



{a) By inoculation. When the poison is introduced 

 subcutaneously, the disease is reproduced with great 

 certainty. It is remarkable, however, how rarely the 

 disease is contracted through superficial scratches by 

 pathologists ; for, although tubercle bacilli have been 

 found in post-inorteni sores, the author thinks no one 

 has become tubercular in consequence ; but this is too 

 sweeping a statement. 



{b) Through ingesta. Rabbits and guinea-pigs readily 

 become tubercular when fed upon tubercular tissues or 

 sputum, while dogs are less readily infected. Herterich has 

 recorded the case of a healthy widow with two children, 

 who married a second husband who had phthisis, by whom 

 she had three children. She herself became phthisical, and 

 her two youngest children developed deep yellow-coloured 

 uicers on the mouth and fauces, and ultimately general 

 tuberculosis. The children had been fed on food which 

 the mother had previously chewed. Reich records ten 

 cases of tubercular meningitis in a country village, occur- 



