The physiology and pathology of the spleen / by Charles S. Roy.

Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology and pathology of the spleen / by Charles S. Roy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    i THE PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF THE SPLEEN, {First communication.) By CHARLES S. ROY, M.D., Professor- Superintendent of the Brown Institution. PI. XIY., XV., XVI. {From the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory}) It is fully recognized by physiologists that, under normal conditions, there is a certain relation between the degree of functional activity of an organ or tissue and the degree of expansion of its blood vessels. It was only, however, after making a long series of observations upon this subject in the case of the kidney, comparing the activity with which the renal circulation is being carried on with the rapidity of secretion of the urine, that I learned how surprisingly closely these two phenomena correspond. The method employed in these kidney experiments (which are not yet published) permitted of even excessively slight changes in the calibre of the renal vessels—as expressed hy the changes in volume of the whole organ—being recorded graphically, while, at the same time and on the same paper, the number of drops of urine was also recorded, each drop of urine, which fell from a narrow cannula tied in the ureter, closing for an instant an electric current which flowed through the bobbins of an electro-magnetic signal. These observations showed that an excessively minute change in the rapidity of the urinary secretion—that an increase, for example, in the rapidity of the flow of urine, such as could barely be discovered by this exact method of counting the drops, was invariably accompanied by an increase in the calibre of the renal vessels, causing a very evident rise in the line which represented the volume of the kidney. In other words—paradoxical as it may appear— it was found that the rapidity of the flow of urine could be followed indirectly, by observing the changes in the calibre of the blood vessels of the kidney, with very much greater convenience than could be done directly by counting the number of drops of urine which escaped from a cannula tied in the ureter. This fact naturally suggested to me that a study of the changes in the circulation through an organ or tissue (a matter which, in the case of many organs, presents but little difficulty) offers to us a method, from 1 From observations made while the author held the post of Georye Henry Lewes Student.