TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. DEPT. ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 563 



Idngdom, with the result of discovering the general plan of gland-structure, and 

 the analogies existing between glands, however diverse, so John Goodsir passed 

 under review the histological characters of the cells of diflerent glands in a large 

 variety of animals, vertebrate and invertebrate. His first results were published in 

 the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh' for the year 1842 ; his more 

 matured views were developed in a paper entitled 'On Secreting Structures,' which 

 formed one of a collection of papers which saw the light in 1845. As a result of 

 his survey Goodsir came to conclusions of which the most important may be stated, 

 almost in his own words, as follows : — 



' The ultimate secreting structure is the primitive cell endowed with a peculiar 

 organic agency, according to the secretion it is destined to produce. I shall hence- 

 forward name it the primary secreting cell. 



' Each primary secreting cell is endowed with its own peculiar property, accord- 

 ing to the organ in which it is situated. In the liver it secretes bile, in the mamma 

 milk, &c, 



'The primary secreting cells of some glands have merely to separate, from the 

 nutritive medium, a greater or less number of matters already existing in it. Other 

 primary secreting cells are endowed with the more exalted property of elaborating, 

 from the nutritive medium, matters which do not exist in it. 



' The discovery of the secreting agency of the primitive cell does not remove 

 the principal mystery in which the function has always been involved. One cell 

 secretes bile, another milk ; yet the one cell does not differ more in structure from 

 the other, than the lining membrane of the duct of one gland from the lining mem- 

 brane of the duct of another. The general fact, however, that the primitive cell 

 is the ultimate secreting structure, is of great value in physiological science, in- 

 asmuch as it connects secretion with growth, as phenomena regulated by the same 

 laws.' 



Goodsir ^^■as unquestionably wrong in certain of his speculations concerning 

 secreting cells : as, for instance, in attributing at one time the chief part in the 

 process of secretion to the cell-wall, and at a later period ascribing the same function 

 to the cell-nucleus. He certainly had not grasped the modern idea, which, as I shall 

 afterwards mure particularly point out, considers the act of secretion as one of 

 the results of the activity of the living protoplasm of the cell. His assumption, 

 too, that the secreting cell invariably contains, preformed, the characteristic matters 

 of the secretion, is one which is by no means generally true. Nevertlieless, it is 

 irapo.ssible to study Goodsir's researches on the secreting cell, without ascribing to 

 him the merit of having been the one who made the most important generalisation, 

 connecting cell life with a definite organic function. 



I may be permitted, as it were parenthetically, to refer for a moment to John 

 Goodsir, with the veneration which is natural in one who was his pupil. If it be 

 true that tlie rapid march of scientific discovery has caused us well-nigh to forget 

 the great debts which we owe to Johannes Miiller, it is no less true that John 

 Goodsir's name has passed into premature and undeserved oblivion. Goodsir's was 

 a mind which in some respects, especially in its tastes, resembled that of Miiller. 

 He was a devoted anatomist, and studied morphology in the first instance for its own 

 sake, but also because of the light which it sheds on organic function. He had a power- 

 ful intellect, an insatiable thirst for knowledge, a sympatliy with all branches of in- 

 quiry which could throw light upon the science to which he devoted his life, and a 

 devout and reverential spirit, which was not the less strong because it only rarely 

 found audible, though then it was emphatic, utterance. In the earlier part of his 

 scientific career, numerous papers, for the most part short, but cliaracterised by re- 

 markable originality of observation and freshness of thought, seemed to promise 

 that Goodsir would be one of the most productive of the worlcers of his time. A 

 lingering illness which, without altogetlier disabling him, enfeebled his physical 

 powers, and cast a gloom upon a life which had promised so much, almost put an 

 end to his career, in so far as the scientific world at large was concerned, and hence- 

 forward he devoted his remaining energies to studies of which the results were for 

 the most part not published, but especially to the task of teaching. Goodsir was 

 a master who, if judged of by the low standard of fitness to instruct the great 



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