The medical assistant, or Jamaica practice of physic : designed chiefly for the use of families and plantations / by Thomas Dancer.
- Thomas Dancer
- Date:
- MDCCCI [1801]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The medical assistant, or Jamaica practice of physic : designed chiefly for the use of families and plantations / by Thomas Dancer. 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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![CHAP, arteries, but from a large vein called the vena portarum, which is di- ftributed through the liver by an infinity of fmall branches. The bile then is formed from the returning and recrementitious part of the . blood, and after fecretion is depofited in the gall-bladder; where its qualities feem to be further exalted. The great flow of it in fome dif- eafes, and the effect of it changing the colour of the fkin, when ab~ forbed into the mafs of blood, has made it the fubjeel of peculiar at- tention. It has been the imaginary caufe of a multitude of complaints. That it is never vitiated, is not alTerted ; but, in its natural ftate, it is a very necetfary liquor for producing, in conjunction with the pancre- atic juice, further changes on the digefted matter from the ftomach. It feems alfo to be a ftimulus for exciting the action of the whole in- teftinal canal, and may be called a natural cathartic;, for, where there is a deficiency of it, coftivenefs always prevails. The food now being fir ft digefted in the ftomach, and then mixed with the bile and other fluids in the inteltinal canal, undergoes a further affimilation, and be- comes chyle :* Which being abforbed by the numerous mouths of the lacteals, opening on the internal furface of the inteftines, is conveyed to the glands of the mefentery; where jt is diluted by the lymph brought by the lymphatic vetTels j and then, after being collected in a general receptacle, goes by the thoracic duct, in an afcending direction, to be poured into the fubfclavtan vein, and mixed with the blood, as was before defcribed. See p. 4. The Inteftines sre a membranous and mufcular canal, of confiderable ]ength,-f varioufly convoluted, and having partial ^r half valves (val- vula connivente-s) for the purpofe of giving an extent of furface, and for retarding * From an anaiyns or examination of the chyle, it appears to have an intimate re* ftmblance to milk. f The human interims are fix tixes the length of the body.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21113439_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
