Page:A Treatise on the Diseases of the Bones.djvu/11



For several years past, I have felt much interest in that department of pathology which embraces the diseases of the osseous tissue. While I perused with pleasure and advantage many able works on the subject, I found it to be an arduous task to reconcile the conflicting opinions which different Authors entertained of the same disease, and to carry in my memory the lengthened details of systematic writers.

To satisfy myself respecting the nature of the various Diseases of the Bones, I embraced every opportunity of investigating them by the inspection of the human body, by experiments on the lower animals, and by the careful examination of morbid specimens, which are found in public and private collections. Thus prepared, I recorded, for my own satisfaction, some observations on the pathology of bone; when it ocurred to me, that, by publishing them in a condensed and systematic form, I might obviate some of the difficulties which occur to Students, in the investigation of this part of Morbid Anatomy. In doing this, it was not my intention to dwell upon the surgical treatment of the diseases which I notice : the brief remarks which I occasionally offer