62 in the tissue of a single organ. He describes bony change within cartilage and fibrous tissue and goes on to comment that, ―La dégénération graisseuse du foie est encore assez commune,‖ an observation that continues to be honored in the form of cirrhosis named after him.108 Laënnec follows his entry on dégénération with one on dégénéréscence, a relatively recent and uncommon locution that he considers synonymous and redundant. Though the latter variant of the word came to predominate, Laennec‘s use of the definition of degeneration in the context of pathological anatomy and histology persists to this day.
A discussion of degeneration almost entirely in a botanical context is that of Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemin,109 quoting the work of his mentor the Swiss botanist de Candolle.110 Guillemin‘s essay, which appeared in the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle in 1824, attributes to degeneration the appearance of monstruosités in the plant kingdom and comments,
Aujourd‘hui il es reconnu que la plupart de ces monstruosités son plutôt des retours vers la nature primitive des organs, que des écarts de cette nature, nous avons dû étudier les Dégénérescences comme moyens de distinguer les rapports des Plantes. (Guillemin 383)
Laënnec‘s cirrhosis: ―usually due to chronic alcoholism‖ is associated with, ―small regenerative nodules, sometimes containing fat.‖ Fatty degeneration being the, ―abnormal formation of microscopically visible droplets of fat in the cytoplasm of cells.‖ (Steadman’s Medical Dictionary 28th ed. 2006) 109 Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemin (1796-1842): French physician, botanist and herbalist. 110 Augustin Pyrame de Candolle (1778-1841): Swiss botanist and taxonomist who founded the scientific study of botanical geography. 108