A manual of the practice of medicine / by George Hilaro Barlow.
- George Hilaro Barlow
- Date:
- 1861
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of the practice of medicine / by George Hilaro Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
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![CHANGES IN BLOOD. with which we are most concerned, in the treatment of disease, are the principles of the secretions of the great depurating organs, the lungs, the liver, and the kidneys; to which may be added the skin (which is correlative with and often, m a great measiu-e, vicarious of the latter), and the glandules of the large intestines. Now the depm-ating action of these organs may be suspended, or interrupted, chiefly in three different ways: 1st, the depu- rating organ may itself be unsound; 2, the circulation^p blood through it may be obstructed; or, 3, the r eliminated may not be brought to the depurating q particular form suited for removal by that organ. *^»v The first of these conditions will be special}| jipti4egj respect to each secretion, in treating of the diseaies^ responding organ, when the particular consequpnc^ of retention will also be described. . T . In order to the due appreciation of the second and tHiS cumstances just mentioned, as interfering with the acl^n o^j^^j. depurating organs, it is necessary to understand the^*i§;e^i?a]!./*''^j. conchtions essential to their full operation, We know from physiology, that, in the coui-se of the circula- tion, carbonic acid gas is formed and received into the blood, and that, if retained, it acts as a poison to tlie system: and we also know, that the removal of this gas is effected in the cells of the lungs; where it is exposed to the action of another gaseous fluid, the atmospheric air, which acts as a solvent of the car- bonic acid; and, according to Dr. Stevens, exercises some attrac- tion for it. It may here be remarked that tliough water and carbonic acid are the only excretions or exhalations from the membranes of tlie air-cells in tlie perfectly normal state ; yet, as pointed out by Dr. Alison, it is certain that many volatile matters taken into the stomach, are excreted unchanged, or but little changed, witli the breath, and probably the body is thereby saved from their injurious effects. It must therefore follow, tliat if the free access of air to the cells or the free circulation of the blood tlirough the lungs be impeded; there must ensue an iuquination of the blood by carbonic acid, and perliaps by other gaseous excretions. As regards the bile and the urine, the former of these se- cretions is a liquid consisting of water, holding, in solution, certain principles, containing a large proportion of carbon and liydrogen, wliich are uniformly present in Jiealth, and are in part, though probably not wholly, excrementitious. These principles, moreover, exist in healthy blood, in very minute quantities, and it is the oftice of the liver to remove them; tiieir secretion takmg place, as there is every reason to believe,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21509104_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
