{"id":1873,"date":"2015-08-16T12:49:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-16T12:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?p=1873"},"modified":"2015-08-16T13:11:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-16T13:11:04","slug":"william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/","title":{"rendered":"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It would be amiss for us not to write about some of the exotic titles in the Library and Archive Service\u2019s Rare Book\u00a0collection. Many of these unique\u00a0works need care and conservation to restore them to their original condition. In our quest to highlight our special collections, we are presenting William Balfour\u2019s colourful \u2018Observations on adhesion with two cases\u2019, a 19<sup>th<\/sup> century publication that showcases the author\u2019s belief in the body\u2019s natural capacity to bind and heal flesh after accidents involving minor amputations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: start\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1876 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-2-300x175.jpg\" alt=\"Julia Blog post 2\" width=\"375\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-2-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-2.jpg 1016w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 375px) 100vw, 375px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>First published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, \u2018Observations on Adhesion\u2026\u2019 w<span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">as published to show \u201cthe powers of nature to reunite parts which have been, by accident, totally separated from the animal system.\u201d By first noting that the capacity of trees to absorb wood through grafting, he surprised his colleagues by replicating this process in humans. Thus, he proved that small separated body parts receiving no circulation at all could be reunited with the body as long as this happened in a timely manner. In order to convince sceptics, he presented two case studies, one involving his son, who had three fingers accidentally sliced off in the slamming of a door, and the other on the carpenter, George Pedie, who lost a thumb to a botched hatchet-blow at work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In both cases, Balfour stuck finger to hand, bandaged it, and low and behold, adhesion of finger and hand took place quickly. In the case of George Pedie, it only took two days. In anticipation of a sceptical response from his colleagues, Pedie provided a witness statement in support of this work:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1878 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-Post-31-300x142.jpg\" alt=\"Julia Blog Post 3\" width=\"431\" height=\"204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-Post-31-300x142.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-Post-31-1024x486.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-Post-31.jpg 1191w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 431px) 100vw, 431px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">\u201cI had no reason to go to any other than Dr Balfour; but that I did not believe the part of my finger that had been cut off would reunite, and that I was laughed\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">at by\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5\">all my acquaintances for ever expecting that it would\u2026That when the dressings were first removed\u2026reunion of the parts was found to\u00a0have taken place.\u201d(George Pedie, house-carpenter)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Written in English, \u2018Observations on adhesion [\u2026]\u2019 forms the first section of a book that also contains nine medical dissertations written in Latin and presented to the Edinburgh Royal Medical Society from 1810-1814.<\/p>\n<p>Balfour, W. (1814).<strong> Observations on adhesion with two cases. <\/strong>Edinburgh, Blackwood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It would be amiss for us not to write about some of the exotic titles&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":385,"featured_media":1875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27649,7575,27713],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","category-books","category-special-collections","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It would be amiss for us not to write about some of the exotic titles...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1141\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"874\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@LSHTMlibrary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@LSHTMlibrary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\"},\"wordCount\":386,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Archives\",\"Books\",\"Special Collections\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\",\"name\":\"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg\",\"width\":1141,\"height\":874},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/\",\"name\":\"Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog\",\"description\":\"News &amp; features from LAORS\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/author\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog","og_description":"It would be amiss for us not to write about some of the exotic titles...","og_url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/","og_site_name":"Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog","article_published_time":"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1141,"height":874,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@LSHTMlibrary","twitter_site":"@LSHTMlibrary","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"","Estimated reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion","datePublished":"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/"},"wordCount":386,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg","articleSection":["Archives","Books","Special Collections"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/","url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/","name":"William Balfour\u2019s Observations on Adhesion - Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg","datePublished":"2015-08-16T12:49:02+00:00","dateModified":"2015-08-16T13:11:04+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/08\/16\/william-balfours-observations-on-adhesion\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/08\/Julia-Blog-post-1.jpg","width":1141,"height":874},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/","name":"Library, Archive &amp; Open Research Services blog","description":"News &amp; features from LAORS","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/author\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/385"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1873"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1873\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}