104 INTRODUCTION. 



which, it is true, are not easy to determine, but how confined 

 also, are the observations made on such a subject, and conse- 

 quently how unequal to the determining of the conditions of a 

 phenomenon for the production of which nature has spared no 

 time. 



OP THE ALTERATIONS OF THE ORGANIZATION. 



119. The human body does not always arrive at the term 

 of its existence by a progressive alteration of the organization. 

 Most generally the development stops, deviates from the usual 

 course, or the organization regularly developed, becomes al- 

 tered by the action of external agents. The body thus altered 

 in its conformation, in its texture, in its composition, is the sub- 

 ject of morbid anatomy. To the physician, this kind of anato- 

 my is the necessary compliment of the anatomy of the healthy 

 body; it is to pathology, what ordinary anatomy is to phy- 

 siology; pathology can no more exist without morbid anato- 

 my, than physiology without anatomy; there can no more be 

 morbid phenomena or symptoms without altered organs, than 

 functions without regular organs, than phenomena without bo- 

 dies, motion without matter. Morbid anatomy is the founda- 

 tion of pathology. 



120. The derangements of the organization, may affect the 

 conformation of the body, in general, or of some organs: this 

 constitutes a first class, that of vices of conformation. Some 

 are original or primitive, others are secondary or acquired. 

 These latter are numerous and very different from each other. 

 As to the first, attentive observation has caused the discovery 

 of one of the most important laws of the development of the 

 organization. These vices, are in fact, and essentially, only a 

 permanent state, in one or several organs, stadia or degrees, 

 through which they pass in the progressive development. 

 Thus, for instance, the numerous vices which consist in a fis- 

 sure or separation, more or less great, on the median line, as 

 the hair-lip, that of the roof of the mouth, or of the velum pa- 

 lati, the opening of the sternum, of the diaphragm, of the wall 

 of the abdomen, of the anterior parietes of the bladder, of the 



