The motive power of the human system : with the symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood.

  • Sherwood, H. H. (Henry Hall)
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The motive power of the human system : with the symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood. 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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    On an examination of the fluid that has passed through these glands on its way to the heart, with a magnifying glass, it is found to contain a great number of minute round bodies of a white or milky colour, which are accumulated in the blood and form its globules. And as every part of the body is found to be made up of minute round bodies connected together by connecting substance, there can be no doubt that they are formed in these conglobate glands, after the pattern of their acini. These positive secretions, with the chyle from the intestines, are at- tracted to the heart, and then repelled from it through the arteries to be deposited for the renewal and growth of the body, as well as for supply- ing the excreting system with the necessary fluids for excretion, and the secreting system for secretion. A full and constant supply of these secretions or round elementary bodies and connecting substance, was necessary to maintain the body in a healthy state, and as the supply through these glands was liable to in- terruptions from various causes, a large organ, called the spleen, was constructed with acini to secrete the same fluids, and furnish at all times the necessary quantities for the exigencies of the body. We sometimes eat, and at the same or other times, drink more than is necessary to supply the wants of the secreting and excreting systems, or more than they can secrete or excrete ; and as this excess or superabund- ance must, with that 'which was necessary, be attracted into the circu- lating mass of fluids, it was necessary to have other organs to separate the excess of positive and negative matter; for under other circum- stances the body would be soon overloaded with matter, and motion would consequently cease. The liver was therefore formed to separate the superabundance of po- sitive, and the kidneys, the superabundance of negative matter. The positive matter thus excreted might be, and is accumulated first in a cistern or gall bladder, and then conveyed through a tube into the intestines, and mixed with other positive matter there ; but it would not do to have the negative matter excreted by the kidneys, and accumu- lated in its cistern or bladder, conveyed through a tube into the intes- tines, because it was necessary to keep them constantly covered with po- sitive matter, and it was consequently conveyed to the surface in another direction. Plants have a similar secreting system; the fibrous or hairy roots of plants are vessels with open orifices, through which nutritious matters are attracted from the earth to the bulbs or poles of their roots, and are thence repelled in other vessels through the whole of the cellular and vascular tissues of the plant, terminating in the vasa propria and conglo- bate glands, which secrete the peculiar fluids of the species. These fluids are magnetised and changed from the positive to the ne-