Lectures on the influence of researches in organic chemistry on therapeutics : especially in relation to the depuration of the blood / delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, by Golding Bird.

  • Bird, Golding, 1815-1854.
Date:
1848
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Credit: Lectures on the influence of researches in organic chemistry on therapeutics : especially in relation to the depuration of the blood / delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, by Golding Bird. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    chemist, the results obtained in the labora- tory of life. It is true that our very suc- cess gives us a lesson of humility; we cannot, and in all probability never shall be able to take the crude juices absorbed by the plant from the earth, and convert them into the same elements which are elaborated from them by the living organism ; all that human science has yet done, is to take one of the proximate results of a living being, and metamorphose it into others; still, I am anxious to impress upon all who are in- clined to smile at the application of chemical reasoning to physiology, that this is all we presume to be able to do when attempting to explain the probable for mationof the elements of excretions from the blood or from the food ; and if the right to do this is conceded to me, I hope I shall have to make but few calls upon your patience, or draw largely upon your credulity, in the remarks I have next to make to you. In these remarks, which have only the pretence of being introductory to the general subject of these lectures, I have endeavoured to shadow forth some of the improvements effected in chemical inves- tigations by the applications of organic analysis. I am now anxious to apply such results to one of the most important circum- stances connected with the treatment of the disease—viz., our power of modifying the excretions, and controlling, to a certain ex- tent at least, one mode by which that great and important element of health, the depu- ration of the blood, is effected. 1 am anxious, indeed, in this place, to develop the idea, which for years I have endeavoured to work out, that there is something beyond the mere excretions of the liver, the skin, the lungs, or the kidneys, to be regarded in the great function to which I have alluded,—that although in the broadest and most general view it is correct to admit that the liver depurates the blood of excessive carbon, and the kidneys of nitrogen, yet that there is an important and serious fact, far before this, to be noticed, although overlooked and neglected. This fact is the one I am now anxious to develop,—that if the excretions be carefully examined quoad their chemical constitution, it will be found that each de- purating gland can perform more than one function,—that although, under ordinary circumstanees, a given organ may chiefly excrete carbon, yet that it also excretes a certain proportion of some other element; and in disease or imperfection of the organ, whose normal function it is to excrete this particular element, its elimination may be actually effected by that structure, which in a state of health secerns a minimum of it. Thus, I would not only, with the generally received physiology, invest each depurating organ with its particular function, but I would do more, and regard each chemical element of an excretion as performing a particular office. I hope thus to be able to point out, how the power of one organ, com- pensating for the deficient function of another, not only involves no absurdity, but is consistent with fact. If this can be demonstrated, or even shewn to be probable, it is obvious that no small light may thus be thrown on some, at present, obscure parts of therapeutics. The relation of the different elements of the excretions to each other is really much more intimate then has been suspected; and our powers of modifying that great and important function to which attention has been but lately drawn, the metamorphosis of our worn-out and ex- hausted tissues—in other words, the pheno- mena of waste, may perhaps turn out to be more complete than we have ourselves anti- cipated. This destructive assimilation of our tissues, exercises an important, nay, we may even say, all-important influence on our well-being. Look at one person, who, instead of having his worn-out tissues re- solved into the soluble elements of excretions, converts them into uric acid, and its presence in the blood and deposition in the joints becomes his bane and misery, in developing the tortures of gout. Or glance at another, whose old tissues are broken up into oxalate of ammonia, which in the presence of the calcareous salts of the urine, wears out the sufferer with the irritation of a mulberry cal- culus in his kidney. Others again hardly metamorphose their exhausted atoms at all, but with a lessened vitality arrest them in the glandular textures, developing the distresses of scrofula. These are but a few of the abnormal results of waste of tissues. If we can ever succeed in controlling this, it must be by directing the functions of the depurating organs. In making an humble, and, I fear, imperfect attempt to grapple with a fragment of this great subject, I shall endeavour to draw your attention to the following three points:— 1. The influence of modifying causes in controlling organic metamorphoses. 2. The relation of the elements of the excretions to each other, with the view of demonstrating their probable compensating function. 3. The application of these views to the depuration of the blood in the treatment of disease. The inquiry which I propose to enter into to-day is one no less important than inte- resting, as well from the magnitude of the results flowing from it, as from the remark- able, nay wonderful, effects it develops. It is comprehended in the first of the three propositions I have just announced— The influence of modifying causes on the pro- duction of organic metamorphoses. It has often been a matter of surprise that this