Action of mercury on the liver / [T. Lauder Brunton].

  • Lauder Brunton
Date:
[1873]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Action of mercury on the liver / [T. Lauder Brunton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    8 probably is always present. We thus see that, normally, a great part of the bile goes round in a circle, from the liver into the duodenum, thence into the blood, so to the liver again, while another part is carried down by the contents of the intestine, and, after becoming more or less altered, passes out of the body with the feces. Let us now consider what the result will be if the quantity of bile circulating in this way should be increased. All ob- servers are agreed that abundant food increases the secretion of bile 3 and we will suppose that this has been done by continued good living and a succession of heavy dinners, such as most Englishmen are accustomed to indulge in at Christmas time. The stomach and intestines, in all probability, also become disordered, and it would be hard to say what part of the con- dition in which the patient then finds himself is to be assigned to them and what to the bile; but this we can readily see, that all the symptoms that an excess of bile in the blood can produce, short of jaundice, will be occasioned ; nor can these be removed by any purgative medicine, which, like aloes, will merely act on the large intestine. .The colon may be cleared of its contents, but the bile will go on undisturbed in its accustomed round. Very different, however, will be the result if a purgative be administered which will act on the duodenum, as we will assume mercury to do, more especially if it be combined with such an one as sulphate of magnesia, which will act on the rest of the bowels. The mercury stimulates the duodenum to peri- staltic contraction, the bile is hurried rapidly downwards, the remainder of the intestine is likewise contracting vigorously, and in a short time all chance of reabsorption is gone, for the bile has been finally evacuated. All excess of bile has thus been got rid of, and, as far as it is concerned, the liver, duo- denum, and other organs may now go on performing their functions in the normal way, until some fresh indiscretion on the part of the patient again causes a disturbance. In the account we have just given of the action of a mer- curial purgative, we have assumed that it acts on the duodenum. Now, this we cannot at present directly prove; but we have the indirect proof afforded by the fact, observed by Radzie-