Note 892 — Chapter V · (continued 3)

‘The specific qualities in diseases also tend more rapidly to the skin than to the deeper-seated parts, except the cancer; although, even in this disease, the progress towards the superficies is more quick than its progress towards the centre.’ … ‘In short, this is a law of nature, and it probably is upon the same principle by which vegetables always approach the surface of the earth.’ A Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, in Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 285. ‘Granulations always tend to the skin, which is exactly similar to vegetation, for plants always grow from the centre of the earth towards the surface; and this principle was taken notice of when we were treating of abscesses coming towards the skin.’ Ibid. pp. 489, 490.