Unpublished paper, 'The human iris, its structure and physiology' by Bernard Edward Brodhurst

Description

Brodhurst states that the iris is an active fibro-cellular tissue, or that it may be considered to be a transition tissue from the ordinary fibro-cellular to the organic muscular: that it is a tissue differing from every other in the body, being possessed of a motor power exceeding that of any other tissue, yet differing in construction and appearance of fibre from those other tissues, the types of motion. He remarks that the microscope shows that the fibres of the iris differ essentially from muscular fibre, whether striped, or of organic life. They are pale, easily separable and readily torn, but they resemble in no essential particular muscular fibre. He concludes that the effect of galvanism on the iris is totally opposed to that produced on muscular fibre.

Subject: Physiology / Optometry

Received 22 May 1851. Communicated by Thomas Bell.

Written by Brodhurst at 33 Finsbury Circus [London].

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 6 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'The human iris; its structure and physiology'.

Reference number

AP/33/4

Earliest possible date

20 May 1851

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

106 pages

Format

Manuscript