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IV. Observations on the Structure and Development of Bone. By John Tomes, F.R.S., 
Surgeon-Dentist to the Middlesex Hospital, and Campbell De Morgan, Surgeon 
to the Middlesex Hospital. 
Received April 22, — Read June 10, 1852. 
The structure and development of bone is a subject which has occupied the 
attention of physiologists both of present and past times, and holds a prominent 
place in their writings. From the time of Clopton Havers, who was the first to 
point out the vascular canals in bone, and whose name they have since borne, to the 
year 1850, when M. Kolliker’s elaborate work on Structural Anatomy appeared, 
physiological writers have dwelt at considerable length on this branch of their 
subject. All have, however, concluded with the admission that more remained to 
be learned before this important structure could be regarded as fully understood*. 
It is the purpose of the authors in this communication, to lay before the Royal 
Society the results of an extended series of observations on the structure and 
development of bone. Such of these results as are novel might, perhaps, be de- 
scribed without reference to those points which are already well known. It will, 
however, be seen, in the subsequent pages, that they are in themselves, and in their 
relations to osseous tissue and its development, as well as to structural anatomy 
generally, of such a nature, as would hardly admit of an intelligible description apart 
from some consideration of the whole subject. Hence it will be necessary to point 
out the relations between that whieh is already known, and that which it is the 
special purpose of this paper to communicate, and it is proposed to consider the 
details of the subjeet as they present themselves in the progress of investigation with 
but little reference to authorities, adding in the form of notes, those statements which 
require acknowledgement, either as agreeing with, or as being opposed to, the views 
advanced in this paper. 
In treating of the structure of bone, it is convenient to commence by describing 
the appearanees which a thin transverse section from the shaft of an adult long bone 
presents when plaeed in the field of a microscope having a magnifying power of 
from 200 to 300 linear. In addition to the large central space which corresponds 
to the medullary cavity of the bone, the seetion is seen to be perforated by numerous 
small apertures, eaeh of which is surrounded by a series of laminse of osseous tissue 
concentrically arranged. Lying amongst the laminse are many small cavities, from 
which minute tubes radiate. These were called bone-corpuscles by Purkinje, who 
* Mikroskopische Anatomie, von Dr. A. Kollieeb. Leipzig, 1850. 
Q 
MDCCCLIII. 
