368 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



among birds, but must pass from this in the meantime. Its 

 occurrence among mammals, and especially in the case of 

 man, is well marked, though comparatively rare. This is a 

 wide subject, and might be very fully illustrated, but I con- 

 tent myself by simply recalling the attention of some of our 

 young anatomists to a paper by Goodsir, read to the Medico- 

 Chirurgical Society in 1844, and printed in his " Anatomical 

 Memoirs." The question discussed arose out of a paper com- 

 municated by Professor Syme to the Eoyal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, and published in vol. xiv. of its Transactions. Syme 

 asked " whether the periosteum or membrane that covers the 

 surface of the bones, possesses the power of forming new 

 osseous substance independently of any assistance from the 

 bone itself ? " There are some things in Goodsir's answer to 

 Syme fitted to shed light on the controversy between Busch 

 and Wolff as to the laws of ossification, referred to in the 

 Proceedings of the Physiological Society of Berlin, as re- 

 ported in last number of Nature. I am not going into the 

 merits as between Syme and Goodsir, They were full of 

 interest to me at the time, and linked into some of the studies 

 of my own college days, and they are full of interest still. 

 But I notice them for the sole purpose of pointing to an 

 instance of reproduction in the long bones, the radius for 

 example. Goodsir says — " In no instance do we ever see a 

 new shaft without at the same time observing portions of 

 the old shaft ulcerated to a greater or less extent — the 

 ulcerated portions invariably corresponding in the early 

 stages to the scales of new bone in the periosteum. When- 

 ever the old shaft is entire its periosteal surface presenting 

 the natural appearance of macerated bone, the part corre- 

 sponding to this in the new shaft is formed of bone, which 

 is seen shooting in the manner peculiar to this mode of 

 regeneration from a point corresponding to an ulcerated 

 portion of the old shaft." He adds — " The new bone shoots 

 in stalactilic masses in the longitudinal direction, their course, 

 direction, and magnitude corresponding to the forms of the 

 rings or portions of ulcerated bone in the old shaft." 



It was my intention to refer somewhat fully to specimens 

 of abnormal forms preserved in the New College Museum, 



