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.

    12/142 (page 4)
    All the business of constant support and renewal of parts, and supply of secretions, as the growth or repair of bone, muscle, membrane, and other structures, the formation of bile, saliva, mucus, and other secretions, is carried on by the extreme minute branches of the arteries; and whilst they preserve their proper size and tone, all goes on well, when their action is deranged, disease commences, often prefaced by pain or other disorder of the nerves; these terminal minute branches of the arteries from their fineness are called CAPIL=- LARIES (from capillus, a hair). . The color of the blood is caused by RED PARTICLES diffused through a transparent fluid which is called serum (whey), from its resemblance to that fluid; when blood is first drawn the red particles may be seen floating about by the means of a microscope, but when it stands they settle down to the bottom and form a cake or clot (called cruor or crassamentum). Some capillaries are too small to admit the red particles unless when they are enlarged by inflammation, as in the eye, which when inflamed changes from white to red; besides that, even the red capillaries are so minute that they are not visible mdividually to the naked eye till enlarged by inflammation. The body is nourished by the arteries depositing in appropriate parts the various constituents of the blood, which is sent through them by the heart. In this way muscles, bones, membranes, &c. grow and are nourished, for the blood contains the constituents of each ; fibrine, &c. for instance, to make muscles; lime, &c. for the bones; albuminous and watery fluid for the formation of membranes, and to supply the secretions and ex- : , 4 a € 5 2 € ae |