Volume 1

The internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The internal secretions and the principles of medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    says: “The form in which proteid is absorbed remains .... a mystery.” Again, if, as text-books on physiology teach, the food-stufEs, duly prepared, were taken up at all by the blood, they should be found in the latter. But, as stated by Mendel, “Beyond the intestinal wall, in the blood and lymph-stream, the cleavage products seem, for the most part, to be missing.” Finally, once in the blood, the fluid proteids should be readily diffusible to penetrate freely to the tissue-cell. HowelP’* states: “The proteids of the blood, which are supposed to be so im- portant for the nutrition of the tissues, are practically indiffus- ible, so far as we know. It is difficult to explain their passage from the blood through the capillary walls into the lymph.” The problem of nutrition is evidently no more solved by physiologists than those of respiration and tissue metabolism. The consequences to us are quite as deplorable. Asiatic cholera, tyjihoid, infantile diarrhoea, and kindred disorders are closely related with all intestinal functions, and in absorption lies the key-note to general infection. How can we possibly obtain a clear conception of all these dread diseases with such a foundation as physiology affords us? The third great question is the manner in which function is incited in an organ. As shown by Claude Bernard, over fifty years ago, this is due to dilation of the arteries of that organ; more blood passing through it, it functionates. Notwithstand- ing considerable work done upon the problem ever since, the manner in which this function is carried out is quite unknown. Naturally, to admit more blood into an organ, the nutrient arteries must be dilated. Now, in his summary of vasomotor actions,. Foster,^-''* for instance, says, referring to the presence of dilator nerves in muscles: “There is no adequate evidence that these vasodilator fibers serve as channels for tonic dilating impulses or influences.” While Landois,'® in the last edition of his text-book, holds that “although a center for vasodilator or vessel-relaxing nerves has not yet been demonstrated, the existence of such a center in the medulla may nevertheless be suspected/’ J. G. Curtis'’'^ states that “it is not known whether 13 Mendel; Med. News, May 20, 1905. Howell: JjOC. cIC, 7>.88fi. ’3 Foster: “T. B. of Physiol.sixth American edition, n. 229, 1805. 1“ I.andois : ‘'T. B. of Physiol.,” tenth edition, ji. 771. 190.5. ” J. G. Curtis; “ Ainer. T. B. of I hysiol., vol i, p. 199, 1900