The home book of health and medicine : being a popular treatise on the means of avoiding and curing diseases, and of preserving the health and vigour of the body to the latest period : including also an account of the nature and properties of remedies : the treatment of the diseases of women and children, and the management of pregnancy and parturition / by a physician of Philadelphia.

  • Horner, William E. (William Edmonds), 1793-1853.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The home book of health and medicine : being a popular treatise on the means of avoiding and curing diseases, and of preserving the health and vigour of the body to the latest period : including also an account of the nature and properties of remedies : the treatment of the diseases of women and children, and the management of pregnancy and parturition / by a physician of Philadelphia. 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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    tensive than the rest, is thrown into nume- rous wrinkles or folds. It obtains the name of villous from the unevenness of its surface, as being1 similar to loose velvet, wool or hair when immersed in water. It is of a reddish colour, and is copiously supplied with mucus. Besides the three proper coats of the stomach, the thick, firm, cellular substance, situated between the muscular and mucous coats, has likewise been described as a coat. The stomach is very copiously furnished with nerves, blood-vessels, and absorbents. The innermost, or villous coat, cover- ed with mucus, contains numerous ab- sorbing- and exhaling' vessels, and a variety of glands which secrete the fluids useful in digestion. The nerves of the stomach come from the eighth pair and intercostals. The stomach is destined to receive the food; and to perform upon it the first, and a very important part of the process of digestion. The sympathy of the stomach with other organs, renders it one of the most import- ant parts of the animal economy. Hence the great majority of medicines, which are intended to act on various parts of the bo- dy, are first applied to the stomach. By wine, spirits, or opium, and other sub- stances, introduced into the stomach, we can make astonishing changes in the func- tions of the brain ; and not only act upon the corporeal frame, but entirely transform or suspend the intellectual operations ; and produce every shade of mental excitement, from the cheerfulness inspired by a tempe- rate draught, to the boisterous violence of intoxication ending in madness. By medi- cines taken into the stomach, we can in- crease the action of the heart and arteries; we can aid the functions of the skin, we can allay the pain of gout or stone ; nor need we now stop to inquire whether these sympa- thies be direct, or whether the action of the brain must intervene between the applica- tion of the substance to the stomach and the ultimate effect. The stomach, also, is one of the most common inlets of disease. Whatever mor- bid impressions are made upon it, become quickly transmitted to the liver, intestines, skin, brain, and lungs, while the diseased condition of the latter are likewise partici- pated in by it. The large class of diseases, classed under the name of fevers, in all probability, owe their origin to an irritation, or inflammation of the lining membrane of the stomach. THE 1'YLOIIUS. The pylorus, or that extremity of the stomach which communicates with the in- testinal canal, is surrounded by a ring of muscular fibres of great sensibility, which, by their contraction, close the outlet from the stomach, and refuse egress to such matters as are not fitted to undergo the next changes in the process of digestion. Thus, ill masticated and indigestible food, coins, stones of fruit, and the like, are not suffered at once to pass from the stomach into the intestines. The pylorus is subject to alteration of structure, ending in cancer, and giving rise to very painful and distressing symptoms. Gastric Juice.—The fluid secreted by the exhalant arteries of the stomach. Until a very late period, the gastric juice was supposed to act upon the aliment taken into the stomach, as a powerful solvent, and in this manner to effect its digestion. To prove this, attempts have been made to cause the digestion of various articles of food, by submitting them to the action of the gastric juice out of the stomach; and, in these experiments, it has been found that the food does undergo a certain degree of softening; but the product of these arti- ficial digestions, has never been proved by chemical analysis to be chyme. Nor is it probable, that a process which is so inti- mately dependent upon the health and vi- gour of the stomach, as digestion, and which causes the food to undergo an actual change in its chemical properties, can be effected by the action merely of a solvent fluid. All the office we are permitted to ascribe to the latter, is that of preparing the aliment for the action of the stomach itself; an office which it shares with the teeth and saliva. The gastric juice, when obtained after a long fast, is a clear, ropy, faintly opaque fluid, entirely destitute of acidity; but when food, or any stimulus, even the simplest kind, is applied to the inner coat of the stomach, the gastric juice then be- comes uniformly acid, and the degree of acidity is in proportion to the amount of the stimulus applied. The acidity is de- rived from the presence of free acetic, and probably hydrocloric (muriatic) acids. THE INTESTINES. By the intestines is meant the whole of the alimentary canal below the stomach. They are divided into the small and large. The small intestines are subdivided into the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum. The large into the ccecum, the colon, and the rectum. All the intestines, except some part of the duodenum, are surrounded and supported by the mesentery. In man, the length of the intestines is about six times that of the body, but in graminivo- rous quadrupeds their length, in proportion to that of the body, is much greater. The small intestines fill the middle and fore-parts of the abdomen, while the large fill the upper and under parts, as well as the sides of that cavity.