A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    248/256 (page 228)
    Ot)« From two papers which the Royal Society did me the lionour to publish above seventeen years ago, it appears, that M. le Galiois had in several respects been deceived in his inferences; and that although the power not only of the heart, but of the blood-vessels also, is independent of the brain ; this organ, far from acting on the former only through the spinal marrow, is capable of directly affecting both, and that even to the total destruction of their power. These points, in consequence of the frequent repetition by others, of the experiments on which they are founded, have now been generally admitted. Rut the opinion of Haller, apparently founded on experiment, and sanctioned by the authority of a name so respected, had become almost general, and could not fail, and probably for a long time to come will not fail, essentially to influence our views of disease, and, consequently, our plans of treatment. It has led physicians too much to neglect the influence of the nervous system in their reasonings respecting the diseases of the circulation, and to ascribe to that system less than they ought to have done in almost all diseases, whether we regard their symptoms or the changes induced in their progress; and, consequently, except where the cause of derangement is evidently seated in the nervous system itself, to be too little influenced by its agency in their plans of cure. As the old pathologists erred in ascribing every thing to the nervous, the moderns have equally erred in ascribing too much to the muscular, jwwer; and facts of every day occur- rence, which made too strong an impression on the former, have failed to have their due weight with the latter ; for an unprepossessed mind might, by the phenomena of disease alone, have seen reason to suppose that not only is the function of every part under the influence of the nervous system, but that the healthy structure of every part depends on it; and, therefore, that through it, not only disease of function, but of structure itself, may arise from causes confined to distant parts, and with which at first view the seat of the disease seems to have no further connexion, than that they are parts of the same animal body. It appears from a paper which I liad the honour to present to the Royal Society in 18f^G, and which is })ublished in the