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An Introduction to General Pathology

1886; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 35; Issue: 889 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/035026a0

1476-4687

Walter Graham Spector,

Microbial infections and disease research

UNTIL recently, pathologists have confined their attention to studying the processes of disease in human beings, and but little effort has been made to take advantage of the vast field of material presented by the animals which die in the Gardens of the Zoological Society. Since 1878 the author has systematically examined the bodies of 12,000 animals and of over 800 still-born and immature fœtuses; and from this vast stock of material he has, for the purposes of the present work, selected, from all parts of the animal kingdom, striking examples which illustrate the main pathological and physiological processes of life. The same principles govern both, and processes which in one group of animals are the cause of disease, in another, owing to anatomical differences, habits of life, and surroundings, have no such influence. Moreover, pathological defects are frequently inherited, and become looked upon as racial peculiarities. Thus the horns of the Ungulata, the curved canines of the Babiroussa, the atrophied right ovary and right carotid artery in many birds, the large third with the small second and fourth metarcarpals of the horse, are now persistent, but were probably originally accidental and pathological.