Constipation in adults and children : with special reference to habitual constipation and its most successful treatment by the mechanical methods / by H. Illoway.

  • Illoway, H. (Henry)
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Constipation in adults and children : with special reference to habitual constipation and its most successful treatment by the mechanical methods / by H. Illoway. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/522 (page 27)
    FLATUS (HNEYSIS, WIND, GAS) In the course of the process of digestion in the intes- tinal tract, by reason of the breaking up of the various alimentary matters ingested and their elaboration into assimilable material, gases are developed in the stomach and in the intestines. They were primitively divided by Van Helmont ^ into two groups, — the inflammable and the non-inflammable, the gases of the large bowel consti- tuting the former, those of the stomach and the small intestines the latter group. This same subdivision was adopted by Priestley. The flatus thus formed is constituted by various gases : carbonic acid gas (CO.2, carbon dioxide); carburetted hydrogen (CH4, methane, marsh gas); nitrogen (N); hydrogen (H); sulphuretted hydrogen (HgS [HSg], hydro- gen sidphide). The last is found normally in the intestines only.^ There is some difference of opinion in regard to carburetted hydrogen, whether it is a normal constituent of the flatus or not.- 1 Tract, de Flatibus, 27. 2 In pathological conditions of the stomach, in dilatation with decided stagnation, it is also found in the stomach and readily recognized in the withdrawn stomach contents by the well-known test. 3 Planer, Siizungsherichte d. Akadem. d. Wissenschaften zu Wien, Vol. XLII. Ruge, Ibid. Vol. XLIV. 734. Chemisch. Centralhlatt, 1862, 347. Nowack und Brautigam, Muenchener Mediz. Wochensclir. 1890.