FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53  
54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   >>   >|  
management and control is the only essential difference between them and the modern soap factory or T.N.T. plant. Man as a carnivor, and as a consequent anatomist, has been acquainted with these more superficially placed glands for some thousands of years. During all this time and during the epoch of the achievements of gross anatomy, it was believed that the secretions of all glands were poured out upon some surface of the body. Either an exterior surface like the skin, or some interior surface, the various mucous membranes. This was supported by the discovery of canal-like passage ways leading from the gland to the particular surface where its secretion was to act. These corridors, the secretory or excretory ducts, are present, for example, in the liver, conducting the bile to the small intestine. Devices of transportation fit happily into a comparison of a gland to a chemical factory, corresponding thus closely to the tramways and railroads of our industrial centers. Little more than a hundred years ago, it was observed that certain organs, like the thyroid body in the neck, and the adrenal capsules in the abdomen, hitherto neglected because their function was hopelessly obscure, had a glandular structure. As in so much scientific advance, the discovery or improvement of a new instrument or method, a fresh tool of research, was responsible. The perfection of the microscope was the reason this time. If one wishes to trace the idea of internal secretion by cells to an individual, it is convenient, if not pedantic, to give the credit to Theophile de Bordeu, a famous physician of Paris in the eighteenth century. Bordeu came to Paris as a brilliant provincial in his early twenties and by the charm of his manner and daring therapy fought his way to the most exclusive aristocratic practice of the court. Naturally a courtier, taking to the intrigues of the royal court like a duck to water, making enemies on every hand as well as friends, and with a fastidious and impatient clientele, he yet found time to dabble in the wonders of the newly perfected microscope and to speculate upon the meaning of the novelties revealed by it in the tissues. _He coined the thought of a gland secretion into the blood_. It was in the year 1749 that he came to Paris from the Pyrenees, a young medical graduate, destined to become the most fashionable practitioner of his time. At the age of twenty-three he was holding the professorship of
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53  
54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

surface

 

secretion

 

glands

 

discovery

 

Bordeu

 

factory

 
microscope
 

century

 

eighteenth

 
instrument

twenties

 

advance

 

improvement

 

therapy

 
fought
 

daring

 
manner
 

provincial

 

brilliant

 

internal


individual
 

wishes

 

perfection

 

responsible

 

reason

 
convenient
 

research

 

Theophile

 

famous

 

physician


credit

 

exclusive

 

pedantic

 

method

 

Pyrenees

 
thought
 

coined

 
novelties
 

revealed

 

tissues


medical

 
twenty
 

holding

 

professorship

 

practitioner

 

graduate

 
destined
 

fashionable

 
meaning
 
speculate