The pathological anatomy of the human body / by Julius Vogel ... ; translated from the German with additions, by George E. Day.
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The pathological anatomy of the human body / by Julius Vogel ... ; translated from the German with additions, by George E. Day. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
48/634
![these gases originate from the food, it may be urged that, certain species of food give rise to an abundance of gas in the intestinal canal, and that sulphur taken medicinally gives rise to a copious development of sulphuretted hydrogen.* In a state of health, these accumulations of gas in the intes- tinal canal are, however, very trifling, or may be altogether absent, whilst in certain pathological conditions they are very abundant, and may even produce fatal effects. The caecum, or colon, will occasionally swell to the thickness of the arm or of the thigh, and may even burst.f The explanation of these cases is pretty clear on taking a close view of the chemical relations of the process of digestion. During healthy digestion, as soon as the food has entered the stomach a secretion of acid gastric juice is excited, which checks any decomposition and evolution of gas. The food, after its conversion into chyme, retains its acidity, which is not at once neu- tralized by the addition of the bile, but gradually disap- pears towards the extremity of the small intestine. Conse- quently, in a normal condition, there can be no evolution of gas in the small intestine. But nature has further afforded means of restraining the decomposition of food in the caecum and colon; for when, after having advanced so far, it still con- tains undecomposed sugar, this constituent becomes changed into lactic acid, and consequently it happens, according to Blondlot,]; that the chyme which has gradually become neutral towards the extremity of the small intestine, not unfrequently again becomes acid in the caecum. Hence, in the normal state, the decomposition of food, accompanied with the deve- lopment of gas, is restricted to the lower extremity of the intestinal canal. But when, in a diseased condition of the digestive organs, the secretion of gastric juice is either entirely absent or not sufficiently abundant, the decomposition of the * Berzelius, op. cit. f P. Frank, op. cit. p. 715—720. ♦ Blondlot, Traite Anal, de la Digestion, § 103.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28043212_0048.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
