First principles of medicine / By Archibald Billing.

  • Archibald Billing
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles of medicine / By Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/142 (page 3)
    I state the nature of the circulation first with which the individual born begins life before it has taken in any food. During health, the process of NUTRITION is thus carried on; the food swallowed is DIGESTED by the action of the gastric juice in the stomach, that is, it is converted into a grey pulpy mass called coymeE, which passes on into the intestines where it is mixed with the BILE. The use of the bile is to unate with and separate the feculent parts, as white of egg is used to clear wine. Now, if a pulpy mass be allowed to stand in a vessel, the solid parts will settle to the bottom, but if rolled about in the hands, or in the manner effected by the peristaltic motion of the intestines, the more solid parts are kept in the middle, whilst the surface of the mass is the moistest; and thus a whitish liquid called cuyLe, ~ which was disengaged when the bile united with the feculent matter and which caused the chyme to appear grey and constitutes the new nourishment, is kept next the coats of the intestines where it is sucked up by the tubes called ABsoRBENT vessels, and these absorbents on account of the white chyle seen through them are called LAcTEAL (milky). The Jacteal absorbents carry this fresh supply of nourishment to make NEW BLOOD; they deliver it first into the veins, near the heart, where it is mixed with the old dark colored blood, which has been circulated and is on its return to the right side of the heart, from whence this mixture is sent through the lungs, to be purified, when it becomes bright scarlet, and is then returned to the left side of the heart, which sends it through the arteries all. over the frame to supply its demands.