On the Mode of Formation of Shells of Animals, of Bone, and of several other Structures, by a process of Molecular Coalescence, demonstrable in certain artificially formed products

Abstract

ABSTRACT Most of our readers will recollect a paper read by Mr. Rainey before the Microscopical Society, and which appeared in the ‘Transactions,’ on the subject of this work. In that paper Mr. Rainey pointed out the remarkable fact that many of the appearances presented by the hard structures of animals, and which had been usually referred to cell-development, were really produced by the physical laws which govern the aggregation of certain salts when exposed to the action of vegetable and animal substances in a state of solution. The paper to which we allude succeeded one which he had previously published in the ‘British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review,’ and the present work consists of the observations contained in these two papers, with much new matter, both physical and anatomical. We need not repeat or discuss here Mr. Rainey’s views, but we give an extract from his Preface :