Dissertations, On cynanche trachealis or croup, and On the functions of the extreme capillary vessels in health and disease : to which were awarded the Boylston premiums for the years 1820 and 1823 / by William Sweetser.

  • Sweetser, William, 1797-1875.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dissertations, On cynanche trachealis or croup, and On the functions of the extreme capillary vessels in health and disease : to which were awarded the Boylston premiums for the years 1820 and 1823 / by William Sweetser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    comparative unfrequency of cutaneous diseases in the aged, and the sluggishness, when they do occur, with which they go through their morbid or curative process- es. The capillaries in other parts of the body are less active in the old man ; callus is much more slowly form- ed, and all injuries are more tardily and with more dif- ficulty recovered from. The capillary vessels, however, of the internal organs do not generally seem to be di- minished in their number or activity, as it regards their healthy functions, certainly not in the same proportion. The glands, as may be seen in the liver, kidneys, &c. preserve their red colour and vascularity; their func- tions too as well as those of the other internal organs, continue to go on with activity. This perfection in the internal functions of the old man is often witnessed even when his animal existence has nearly ceased its manifestations. The blood then first seems to desert the external parts and becomes comparatively more concentrated in the internal organs, from which loss of balance between the surface and viscera, it arises that congestions and inflammations in the latter are more frequent as we advance in life. At the last period of our being, then, the energies of the system obviously become concentrated in the inter- nal man, and the internal glandular life seems es- pecially to be most slowly extinguished. Man dies naturally from the circumference towards the centre. Those ties which connect us with external objects, and from which is derived all the anxiety we feel for ex- istence, are first broken, nature destroys or weakens the desire for life, and next life itself. Our animal being ceases, we vegetate, then die.