Tissue

Abstract

Tissue derives from the Latin texere, “to weave”. Long used to describe a fabric of interwoven material, tissue gained currency in medical circles around 1800, when the French anatomist Marie-François Xavier Bichat applied it to the common structural elements shared by organs and systems. To order the bodily interior Bichat classified 21 types of tissue, each with a distinct function, and tried to understand diseases as lesions of these regions (for example, pericarditis). Tissues then became the subject of a new “general anatomy”, which was renamed histology in 1819. From the 1830s, tissues were no longer understood as the basic substance of the body; thanks to improvements in microscopy, they were now perceived as congeries of their component cells.New clinical and scientific techniques transformed tissue in the early 20th century: from an inert object of analysis to a valuable clinical resource and a dynamic experimental system. As part of increasing tissue grafting procedures, tissue such as skin was taken from human beings and animals, and grafted onto patients who had been scarred by burns, or injured in industrial accidents. In controversial procedures, sections from reproductive glands were also grafted to “revive” elderly and rich patients. At the same time, the development of tissue-culture techniques, from 1907, allowed scientists to directly manipulate tissues in vitro. This development gathered pace after World War II, when technical improvements and the use of antibiotics allowed tissues to survive longer in culture. They now became the sites of production for vaccines for polio, rabies, and rubella.Transatlantic changes in patent law in the 1980s gave tissues unprecedented economic importance as patentable commodities. Yet this shift clashed with a growing legal and philosophical emphasis on patients' autonomy, which, in turn, refigured tissues into contested objects in an emergent bioethics. These new and conflicted meanings were evident in disputes about the acquisition and ownership of tissues—such as the US case Moore vs The Regents of the University of California (1984–1990) and the UK Bristol Royal Infirmary and Alder Hey scandals (1999–2001). The latter two cases led to the passage, in the UK, of the 2004 Human Tissue Act, which makes patients' consent a fundamental principle for the medical storage and use of tissues. Tissue derives from the Latin texere, “to weave”. Long used to describe a fabric of interwoven material, tissue gained currency in medical circles around 1800, when the French anatomist Marie-François Xavier Bichat applied it to the common structural elements shared by organs and systems. To order the bodily interior Bichat classified 21 types of tissue, each with a distinct function, and tried to understand diseases as lesions of these regions (for example, pericarditis). Tissues then became the subject of a new “general anatomy”, which was renamed histology in 1819. From the 1830s, tissues were no longer understood as the basic substance of the body; thanks to improvements in microscopy, they were now perceived as congeries of their component cells. New clinical and scientific techniques transformed tissue in the early 20th century: from an inert object of analysis to a valuable clinical resource and a dynamic experimental system. As part of increasing tissue grafting procedures, tissue such as skin was taken from human beings and animals, and grafted onto patients who had been scarred by burns, or injured in industrial accidents. In controversial procedures, sections from reproductive glands were also grafted to “revive” elderly and rich patients. At the same time, the development of tissue-culture techniques, from 1907, allowed scientists to directly manipulate tissues in vitro. This development gathered pace after World War II, when technical improvements and the use of antibiotics allowed tissues to survive longer in culture. They now became the sites of production for vaccines for polio, rabies, and rubella. Transatlantic changes in patent law in the 1980s gave tissues unprecedented economic importance as patentable commodities. Yet this shift clashed with a growing legal and philosophical emphasis on patients' autonomy, which, in turn, refigured tissues into contested objects in an emergent bioethics. These new and conflicted meanings were evident in disputes about the acquisition and ownership of tissues—such as the US case Moore vs The Regents of the University of California (1984–1990) and the UK Bristol Royal Infirmary and Alder Hey scandals (1999–2001). The latter two cases led to the passage, in the UK, of the 2004 Human Tissue Act, which makes patients' consent a fundamental principle for the medical storage and use of tissues.