A dissertation on the institutes of medicine, particularly relating to the pathology of fever / By William Stoker.

  • Stoker, Gulielmus, 1773-1848.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dissertation on the institutes of medicine, particularly relating to the pathology of fever / By William Stoker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    XXVllt controlling influence of vital power for evolving animal heat. To effect such important purposes might be deemed an adequate employment for so extensive a viscus as the liver, whilst the secretion of bile might be considered rather as a secondary and residual process not absolutely necessary to warm blooded ani¬ mals, as some are found totally destitute of any organ for its reception, retention, or transmission ; and I should observe farther on the more probable use of the liver, that at the birth of all animals the remarkable size of that viscus seems to indicate it as a provision for the rapid increase of bulk which then takes place chiefly by the sud¬ den deposition of adipose substance in the cellular membranes. The increased tem¬ perature of the body in infancy beyond that at maturer periods of life, is likewise a fact well ascertained. The same propor« tions of this organ are also found in certain tribes of animals, whose bodies at certain seasons acquire bulk from the increase of fat, with a rapidity that is almost prodigious. With such facts too, may be classed the