The motive power of the human system : with the duodynamic symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood ; revised by H.H. Sherwood's successor, William Larned.

  • Sherwood, H. H. (Henry Hall)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The motive power of the human system : with the duodynamic symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood ; revised by H.H. Sherwood's successor, William Larned. 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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    organ, including even the ventricles of the brain On a minute examina- tion of the structure of the mucous membranes, we find them, like the skin and serous membranes, enclosing numerous little round or oval glands or villi, as they are termed, having, like the papillary glands of the skin, their appropriate arteries, veins, and ducts terminating with open orifices on the surface. They are farther characterized by nume- rous little cavities, crypts or follicles, as they are called, which have more or less a spheroidal shape, and which also open upon the surfaces of these membranes. These ducts and follicles are found to be filled with a semi-fluid or mucus, which is constantly issuing from them, and which spreads upon these membranous surfaces. In pursuing this subject, we have thus found two different kinds of surfaces disposed in two different ways, and thus covered with two dif- ferent kinds of fluids. These are extraordinary results of our investi- gations thus far, and will encourage us to proceed in them ; for it is easy to see that there must have been some object in this order and disposi- tion of these different kinds of matter. On investigating the nature or qualities of these fluids, it is found that the excretions from the skin and serous membranes are more or less acid, and those from the mucous membranes more or less alkaline. They are sometimes so strongly acid and alkaline as to excite the curio- sity of the most common observer. The acid is found to be the muriatic and the alkali, soda and muriate of soda or common salt. The acids and alkalies which possess directly opposite properties, and have at the same time the strongest affinities for each other, are universally diffused in the earth as well as in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. They con- stitute two great and principal divisions of matter, one of which the acid, for the sake of distinction, is called negative matter, and the other, the alkali, positive. Now it is satisfactorily ascertained, from repeated expe- riments, that each of these different kinds of matter gives out constantly an innate and different kind of force. It is also ascertained in the same manner that the alkaline or positive matter gives out the negative force, and that the acidified gives out the positive. The positive matter then, on the internal surfaces of the body and organs, is constantly giving out the negative force, and the negative matter on the external surfaces of the body and organs, the positive force. On a further examination of the human structure, we find four hundred and thirty-six muscles of dif- ferent forms disposed in different ways for the purpose of producing mo- tion. We know that they are formed for this purpose, for we can see that some of them expand, and others contract when we move the body or limbs. For when we bend an arm, we find that the muscles on the outside of it expand, while those on the inside contract. On extending the arm, we find this order reversed; for then the muscles on the inside