Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/220 (page 21)
    MUCOUS .VND SEROUS MEMBRANES. ; fosse. The sense of taste is not confined to the tongue, for I tlie nerve of taste seems largely distributed about the palate I and mouth. The tongue as a mechanical organ is wonder- ! fully useful. Its duty is to arrange every mouthful of food ; for the teeth to masticate, and to prepare and help to carry it I to the throat. As an organ of speech, too, it excites our ■ utmost admiration. It has, however, other noble duties, such . as its diagnostic aiipearances in disease, a few of which arc 1 only recognized. I will not sjieak now of the new attributes I have discovered it to possess in this last field of its useful- : ness, l)ut reserve them for another place. In concluding this part of the subject relating to the head, I will reserve also my observations on its vai'ious divisions 1 as diagnostic of disease in other parts of the body. Thk Mucous and Serous Membranes.—Those have infi- inite uses, not the least is their elasticity to contract and I expand. The mucous secretion is very abundant, viscid, and ! ropy, and protects the membranes from the action of tho air I to which they are always more or less exposed. After it is • secreted by its proper glands it enters into the system again , as an animal compound. It is highly organic, and becomes : filmy when in an inactive state. Thus, all tlie tubes of : glands after active use become filmy, as do tlie coats of the ! stomach when digestion is completed. This film is called t epithelium, and illustrates tho fact that in all cases where I activity in any way ceases. Nature always has a tendency to ' organize her animal matter, and in all these cases gets an I excess of acid in the system, which is as a matter of course I congestive. In no parts is this so prevalent as in tlie mouth I and throat glands, and the stomach, of which I shall treat more : fully when I speak of disease. It is as much a protecting ; medium to the lining of the whole of tho inside and every secreting organ, as the unctuous secretion of tho skin is to tho ‘ outside of the body. Tlie decay and repair of those mem- branes are continually going on precisely as tho external skin. Tlie exposure of the sldn to the atmosplicro, tliough always exuding, makes it dry ; the confinement of tho mucous membrane, which is always exhaling, keeps it moist; but if it was exposed to the air it would also become dry. Tlie one may be called a dry mucous membrane, and tho other a moist skin. This is prettily defined in the lij^s, the redness of