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Show 210 or ‘IUMOURS. or TUMOURS. 211 " In attending to cases of this kind, he found that where Mr. Hunter has described, which hung pendhlous from the a coagulum adhered to a surface, which varied its position, adapting it to the motions of some other part; the attach- ment was necessarily diminished by the friction, rendering it r'm‘wf ~vaf~wpmm .,.c ‘d' .«w'r.-;~::-:7*. A."!"<"‘~'~2 ‘vr - in some instances pendulous, and in others ,breaking it 011‘ entirely. To illustrate this by an example, I shall mention an instance which occurred in the examination of a dead body. The cavity of the abdomen was opened, to examine the state of its contents, and there appeared lying upon the peritoneum a small portion of red blood, recently c0agulat~ ed ; this, upon examination, was found connected to the surface upon which it had been deposited, by an attachment half an inch long, and this neck had been formed before the coagulum had lost its red colom'. This steeped in water so as to become white, appeared like a pendulous tumour." " From this case it became easy to explain the mode in which those pendulous bodies are formed that sometimes occur attached to the inside of circumscribed cavities, and the principle being established, it became equally easy for Mr, Hunter to apply it under other circumstances, since it is evident from a known law in the animal (Economy, that extravasated blood, when rendered an organized part of the body, can assume the nature of the parts into which it is efl‘used, and consequently the same coagulum which in the abdomen front of the peritoneum, and in which the organization and consequent actions have been so far completed, that the body of the tumour has become a lump of fat whilst the neck is merely of a fibrous and vascular texture. There can be little doubt, but that tumours form every where in the same manner. The coagulable part of the blood being either ac~ cidentally efl‘used, or deposited in consequence of disease, becomes afterwards an organized and living part, by the growth of the adjacent vessels and nerves into it. When the deposited substance has its attachment by a single thread, all its vascular supply must proceed through that part; but in other cases the vessels shoot into it irregularly at various parts of its surface. Thus an unorganized concrete becomes a living tumour, which has at first no perceptible peculiarity as to its nature; though it derives a supply of nourishment from the surrounding parts, it seems to live and grow by its own independent powers; and the future structure which it may acquire, seems to depend on the operation of its own vessels. W'lien the organization of a gland becomes changed into that unnatural structure which is observable in tumours, it may be thought in some degree to contradict those observations: but in this case the substance of the gland is the matrix in which the tumour is formed." formed a soft tumour, when situated on a bone, or in the When Mr. Hunter, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Home, Mr. Hey, neighbourhood of bone, forms more commonly a hard one. The eartilages found in the knee joint, therefore, appeared to him to originate from a deposit of coagulated blood upon the end of one of the bones, which had acquired the nature of cartilage, and had afterwards been separated." . Mr. Abernethy continues the subject in these words ; " had vessels shot through the slender neck, and organized the clot of blood, observed by Mr. Hunter, it would then have become a living part, it might have grown to an indefinite magnitude, and its nature and progress would probably have depended on the organization which it had assumed. I have in my possession a ttunour, doubtless formed in the manner and Mr. John Bell, give up their time to the investigation of the nature of tumours, it is an injunction on me to do my ut~ most to satisfy my reader on the subject. Perhaps some of these gentlemen may feel contempt and indignation at the idea of controverting opinions so substantiated as these I have transcribed. But in a science so interesting, the assumption of superiority is a singular instance of inconsistency, and car-ries with it a most ridiculous air of folly. Whoever makes the philosophy of the living body his study may be taught humility, and from his own errors learn to look mildly on those of others. - a mu... prev-(1n , wow more» I |