The Medico-Chirurgical Review, and Journal of Practical Medicine (Volume 48)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846. Excerpt: ... Elements Of Anatomy. By Jones Quain, M.D. Edited by Professors Richard Quain and William Sharpey, M.D. 8vo. Part 2. Taylor and Walton, 1846. A Period of more than two years has intervened between the appearance of the first and second parts of Dr. Quain's useful work; a delay which might have been avoided if the able editors had infused a little more activity into their proceedings. We have thought it right to notice this circumstance, because the patience of purchasers has, of late years, been considerably tried in matters of this kind. The principal feature of this new edition, is the introduction of a concise account of the structural or general anatomy of the various fluids and tissues, from the pen of Dr. Sharpey. This additional matter occupies in the first part eighty-four, and in the present volume one hundred pages. There is a process constantly proceeding in the animal economy, which, although it must be classed among the most important of the vital actions, is but very imperfectly understood; we allude to the production or formation of the red particles of the blood. The vast activity with which the metamorphosis of the various organs is incessantly proceeding and the consequent conversion of the blood, notwithstanding the fixed attention that has been latterly directed to that process, owing chiefly to the brilliant expositions contained in the writings of Liebig, is scarcely yet duly estimated by physiologists. It is apparent that the nearest approximation to the measure of these changes would be obtained by determining the actual amount of matter poured into the blood in a given time by the thoracic duct and by the right trunk of the lymphatic system, as those are the channels by which all the d6bris of the system and all the new nutritive m...