Copy 2

The pathological anatomy of the human body / By Julius Vogel ... Translated from the German with additions by George E. Day.

  • Julius Vogel
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

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.

    61/644 (page 29)
    food takes places sooner, and a considerable volume of gas may be generated. Blondlot has shown, by experiments on anımals, that the absence, or accumulation of gas is in some degree dependant on the nature of the food. When ruminating animals take turnips, beans, or peas, which being rich in sugar, readily yield lactic acid, there is no development of gas in the first stomach. Gas is, however, formed when they have eaten hay or clover, which yield no lactic acid, and are, therefore, prone to decomposition.* | The occurrence of these gases is, as a general rule, restricted to the intestinal canal, and gives origin to the conditions known as meteorism and flatulence. ‘They may, however, find their way from the intestinal canal into the cavity of the perito- neum, either by an actual lesion, (as in cases of perforation), or by permeating the unwounded intestinal walls. That this may happen, is obvious from the slate-grey colour of the surface of the spleen and liver frequently observed in post-mortem exa- minations, and due to the action of sulphuretted hydrogen or hydrosulphate of ammonia, which must have permeated the walls of the intestinal canal before it could reach those organs. Further particulars on this subject will be found in our observations on Melanosis. B. Development of gas from the decomposition of the constituents of the body.—Gas may likewise be developed by the putrefaction of the constituents of the animal body, either during life or after death. Its occurrence during life is not very rare; it takes place in putrid fevers, in typhus, and gangrene. Gas is most commonly evolved from the animal fluids, especially from the blood, when, before undergoing any chemical decomposition, it is arrested in different parts of the body, and its purifica- tion by respiration and secretion is thus impeded, when certain secretions, as the biliary and urinary, are: checked, and their constituents remain in the blood. Gaseous LLP VLSI * Blondlot, op. cit. p. 95.