Observations on spasm of the canals for the food, bile, and urine / [Alexander Monro].

  • Monro, Alexander, 1773-1859.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on spasm of the canals for the food, bile, and urine / [Alexander Monro]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the contracted portion ; so that in order to extract the placenta, it is necessary to overcome the stricture, by passing one finger after another, through the contracted part. At length, the con¬ traction is taken off*, but the doing so gives considerable pain to the woman. The vagina is also liable to a partial and spasmodic contrac¬ tion, which sometimes takes place at its mouth, or towards its middle, and this is occasioned by the partial contraction of the sphyncter muscle, proper to that canal. The Fallopian tubes are also sometimes spasmodically contracted into a spiral form, by the partial contraction of their muscular coat. A partial contraction of a portion of the intestinal canal, of the biliary ducts, and of the urethra, also sometimes occurs, and it is a re¬ markable circumstance, that every part of the passages for the bile and the urine is not equally liable to spasmodic constriction. The ductus communis choledochus, and the ureters, are most frequently constricted at their conjunctions with the duodenum and bladder of urine ; and, in short, the hollow bowels and ca¬ nals proper to these, have a general muscular coat, but there is no peculiar apparatus for producing a partial contraction. CHAPTER III. OF THE CAUSES WHICH INDUCE A SPASMODIC CONTRACTION OF THE MUSCULAR FIBRES. It would lead to a very long digression, totally foreign to the object of this paper, to enumerate the various causes which have been supposed to give rise to a morbid sensibility, or to what has been called the nervous temperament. The chief of these causes have been summed up by Dr Gregory in the follow¬ ing paragraph in his Conspectus Medicinge, vol. i. p. 389- 44 Ha¬ bitus corporis nimis sentiens, et nimis mobilis, homines spasmis opportunos reddit; hinc malum foeminis, infantibus, debilibus, luxuriosis, desidibus, sanguine plenis, familiare.” The very intimate connection existing between the nervous