Boylston prize dissertations : on 1. Inflammation of the periosteum. 2. Eneuresis irritata. 3. Cutaneous diseases. 4. Cancer of the breast. Also remarks on malaria / by Usher Parsons.

  • Parsons, Usher, 1788-1868.
Date:
1839, ©1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Boylston prize dissertations : on 1. Inflammation of the periosteum. 2. Eneuresis irritata. 3. Cutaneous diseases. 4. Cancer of the breast. Also remarks on malaria / by Usher Parsons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    91/268 (page 77)
    immediate. There is, between the stimulus and muscular coat, something intermediate; the mucous surface, which feels the irritation, and its impression is extended to the muscular coat, through the intervening cellular texture. When the mucous coat that receives the impression is diseased, the contractility is uniformly altered; the same stimulus produces slow or quick contractions, according as the affection diminishes or raises the sensibility of this intermediate organ; even slight inflammation may produce very frequent dis- charges of urine.* A desire to void urine varies in its frequency, from a variety of circumstances, some of which refer to the state of the organ, others to the nature and qualities of the urine. Among those of the former may be mentioned age, sex, temperament and habit. In infancy, the muscular coat responds with great quick- ness to the stimulus of the urine. Children often dis- charge it in sleep,—this susceptibility of the organ is, however, gradually diminished by age and growth, and in old age there is a defect of an opposite character, —a want of excitability in the organ, and a consequent retention. In females, the irritability of the organ is ordinarily greater than in males. An irritable temper- ament has some influence on the organ, and season * The muscular coat of the bladder possesses very little animal sensibility. Remove, says Bichat, the peritoneum behind the bladder of a living dog, and irritate the subjacent layer, the animal gives but few marks of pain. He mentions an uneasiness, or feeling of slight distress, experienced by persons whose bladder is kept per- manently empty, as by an open sound in the urethra, which transmits urine as fast as it oozes from the ureters; this unpleasant sensation he attributes to the stimulus of inanition.