< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

Hospital, London. In the history of medicine, this work was destined to have an immortality of its own. In the very opening lines of his preface, Addison clearly states, for the first time, the true paths by which, as subsequent experience has proved, the problems of these mysterious glandular structures have been best approached and attacked:

If Pathology be to disease what Physiology is to health, it appears reasonable to conclude, that in any given structure or organ, the laws of the former will be as fixed and significant as those of the latter; and that the peculiar characters of any structure or organ may be as certainly recognized in the phenomena of disease as in the phenomena of health. When investigating the pathology of the lungs I was led, by the results of inflammation affecting the lung-tissue, to infer, contrary to general belief, that the lining of the air-cells was not identical and continuous with that of the bronchi; and microscopic investigation has since demonstrated in a very striking manner the correctness of that inference—an inference, be it observed, drawn entirely from the indications furnished by pathology. Although pathology, therefore, as a branch of medical science, is necessarily founded on physiology, questions may nevertheless arise regarding the true character of a structure or organ, to which occasionally the pathologist may be able to return a more satisfactory and decisive reply than the physiologist—these two branches of medical knowledge being thus found mutually to advance and illustrate each other. Indeed, as regards the functions of individual organs, the mutual aids of these two branches of knowledge are probably much more nearly balanced than many may be disposed to admit; for in estimating them, we are very apt to forget how large an amount of our present physiological knowledge, respecting the functions of these organs, has been the immediate result of casual observations made on the effects of disease. Most of the important organs of the body, however, are so amenable to direct observation and experiment, that in respect to them the modern physiologist may fairly lay claim to a large preponderance of importance, not only in establishing the solid foundation, but in raising and greatly strengthening the superstructure of a rational pathology.

Tbus did Addison set forth the fact that Nature herself is sometimes the physiologist's best vivisector, even as Billroth and the followers of Marion Sims elucidated the pathology of the abdominal and pelvic viscera by making "autopsies in vivo."

On March 15, 1849, Addison read a paper before the South London Medical Society[1] in which he described the symptoms of what is now styled pernicious anasmia, cases in which the whole surface of the body "bear some resemblance to a bad wax figure." Only three of the cases came to autopsy, but "in all of them was found a diseased condition' of the supra-renal capsules." Was this a mere coincidence? Addison inquires.

Making every allowance for the bias and prejudice inseparable from the hope or vanity of an original discovery, he confessed he felt it very difficult to be persuaded that it was so. On the contrary, he could not help entertaining a very strong impression that these hitherto mysterious bodies—the supra-renal capsules—may be either directly or indirectly concerned in sanguification; and that a diseased condition of them, functional or structural, may interfere with
  1. ↑ Addison, London Med. Gaz., 1849, XLIII, 517.
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