A treatise on indigestion : with observations on some painful complaints consequent on indigestion, especially nervous affections / By Thomas J. Graham.

  • Graham, Thomas John, 1795?-1876.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on indigestion : with observations on some painful complaints consequent on indigestion, especially nervous affections / By Thomas J. Graham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    disordered bowels, and unnatural stools. In- deed, let irritation of the nervous system be excited from whatever cause, it is commonly followed by derangement of the digestive tube; its secretions become vitiated, and either de- ficient, or in excess. Whether the irritating cause be at the beginning local, as from an injury, or general, as from fever, it is soon pro- pagated to this highly sensitive part. Vague observation has considered the black, bloody stools, as morbid discharges from the liver; but an attentive consideration of the phenomena, and of the attending circumstances, will incline us to regard them as diseased se- cretions from the internal surface of the diges- tive canal; and this opinion gains confirmation from the appearances presented on dissection. Bloody motions, says Dr. Marshall Hall, are “ affections of much more frequent occurrence, than is generally imagined, in abdominal de- rangements.” He speaks of vomiting of blood, as being not unfrequently combined with it; and adds, “ the two diseases appear to be simi- lar affections of different parts of the alimentary canal.” “ In several cases, the patient has awoke in the morning with blood in the mouth.”*' This last symptom, which must have occurred to every medical man of much prac- tice, in cases of deranged general health, does * Essay on the Mimoses, 2d edit, page 74.