The nature and causes of duodenal indigestion.

  • William Henry Allchin
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature and causes of duodenal indigestion. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    21/82 (page 17)
    whole organism than do the other functions of the body. I have described it as being essentially physico-chemical; that is to say, the preparation of the food for absorption, irrespective of its nutritive value and only conditioned by its digestibility, is affected by certain movements which bring about a finer subdivision of the food and a due mixing with certain solvent juices which convert the ingesta into a soluble and diffusible state. To a great extent these processes are but continuations of what is accomplished by the ordinary preparation of our food for the table. It is true that the movements of mastication, deglutition, and peristalsis are effected by a character- istically living tissue-muscle, but the results obtained are in no way different from what a mincing machine and a mixer can perform. The changes which are brought about by the various alimentary secretions, saliva, gastric and pancreatic juices, and bile, can be very closely imitated out of the body.