250 NUTRITION. 



a nail, though certainly a clumsy one. An instance of a nail at 

 the end of the stump, after the complete removal of the first, pha- 

 lanx, may be seen in one of our London Journals.' 1 Tulpius de- 

 clares he has seen examples after the loss of both the first and 

 second phalanges in secundo et tertio articulo. 1 The glans 

 penis (in truth a mere continuation of the corpus spongiosum 

 urethrse) was entirely renewed in one case.k Nothing more can, 

 I apprehend, be said respecting the entire restoration of organs 

 in the human body. Portions of cutis, bone, membrane, blood- 

 vessels, absorbents, and nerves, are replaced. That portions of 

 large nerves, fully capable of all the functions of the destroyed 

 pieces, are reproduced, is now a matter of certainty. 1 Minute 

 blood-vessels and absorbents are of course allowed on all hands to 

 be produced in the cure of most solutions of continuity, whether 

 by wounds, ulceration, or whatever else m ; but Dr. Parry, senior, 

 has shown, that, in the ram, at least, when a blood-vessel which 

 proceeds some way without giving off a branch is obstructed, new 

 branches sprout forth and establish a communication on each side 



h London Medical and Physical Journal, 1817. 



1 Observationes Medicce, iv. 56. 



k Edinburgh Med. and Physical Essays, vol. v. 



1 The proofs of this are numerous ; the latest are by Tiedemann. Zeitschrift 

 fiir Physiologie, 4ter band, Her heft, S. 68. 



m Mr. Bauer thinks he has observed vegetable tubes to be constructed by the 

 extrication of carbonic acid gas into a slimy matter prepared for nutrition. Some 

 such opinion was held by Borelli, Tabor, and Hales. He explains the form- 

 ation of blood-vessels in coagulated fibrin and pus in an analogous manner, 

 but his experiments did not proceed far enough for me to dwell upon them. 

 Phil. Trans. 1818 and 1819. Dr. Stevens has recently made observations upon 

 this subject. (L c. p. 66.) 



Not only divided parts re-unite, but even portions completely separated and 

 cold, and parts of different bodies. A soldier's arm \vas struck off at the battle 

 of Arlon, with the exception of a piece of skin and the subjacent vessels and 

 nerves, and yet the muscles, bones, &c. completely re-united in about eight 

 months. (Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicates, t. xii.) Garengeot saw a ncse unite 

 after being bitten off, trampled upon, and allowed to lie in the dirt till it was 

 cold. (Traite des Operations de C/iirurgerie, t. iii.) Dr. Balfour saw a similar 

 occurrence in the instance of a finger. (Edinburgh Med. and Surgical Journal. 

 1815.) One will be found ( Rust's Magazin, 14 b. 1 b. p. 112. Berlin, 1823.) 

 by Dr. John, Wiederanheilung eines gandich absgeschittenen Jtngers. Others 

 might be quoted. See Dr. Thomson's Lectures on Inflammation, p. 243. 



Transplantation, for instance, of the cock's testes to the hen's abdomen, as well 

 as of the spur to the head, is very common, and the latter was mentioned nearly 

 two centuries ago in Bartholin, Epist. Cent. i. p. 174. ; and by Duhamel, in the 

 Mem. deTAcad. Royale des Sciences, 1746, as very common in poultry-yards. 



