Lectures on diseases of the kidney, generally known as 'Bright's disease'; and dropsy / by S.J. Goodfellow.

  • Goodfellow, S. J. (Stephen Jennings)
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diseases of the kidney, generally known as 'Bright's disease'; and dropsy / by S.J. Goodfellow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    much more probable that the secretion comes at once from the vessels under the agency of a nervous cur- rent, or some polar force, excited in a reflex manner by the presence of the meal,—something in the same way that the galvanic current acts in producing rapid osmotic currents through animal membranes, appa- rently in opposition to the laws of endosmose. The character of the secretion is more probably due to the form of network and the size of the capillaries, as in- fluencing the current of the blood, the anatomical and even chemical composition of their walls, and the peculiar character of the nervous currents, than to the protective and perhaps slowly-absorbing cells that lie upon the mucous surface. It is much more probable that the nervous current has far more influence than the epithelial cells in determining the decompositions and recompositions which make the secretions. If we could by any possibility discover the properties of the currents of all the nerves distributed to the several secreting organs, we might find that each has its own special character and property. The same description might apply to the salivary, the biliary, the pancreatic secretion, and even the secretion of milk, which, I grant, is one that offers some appearance of its taking place through the agency of epithelium. The only reason for this is the presence of milky fluid in the cells, and it is reasonable to believe that this fluid is quite as liable to be imbibed by their free as by their attached surface.