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.

    37/142 (page 29)
    diminish gradually in size until they admit only one red particle at a time, and still smaller ones only serum, from which the perspiration of the skin, and secretion of the kidneys are separated, but it must be recollected that in this series of diminution, the larger capillaries do not terminate merely in the smaller, but that there are lateral communications besides with the veins, so that whatever of the blood is not secreted is returned, and it does not follow that where there is diminished secretion, there is obstruction, on the contrary there may be more space for the flow but then in a slower stream, for, as has been shewn, the consequence of en- _Jargement of the capillaries of a part is that the flow of blood will be slower in them, for the supplying arteries remaining the same, the larger the capillaries supplied by these branches the slower the flow will be in those capillaries, consequently there will be a diminution of the current into the minute capillaries which secrete, as those of the skin, kidneys, &c. hence to account for the diminished secretion it is not necessary to sup- pose either any spasm or error loci of the red particles getting into the colourless capillaries, it is enough to consider that the fluid finds an easier way by the en- larged lateral capillaries into the veins instead of being confined and pushed on into the ultimate secretory ter- minations; this accounts for one kind of dimished se- - eretion, where the heart is not deficient in injecting power, but the relaxation of the capillaries from want of nervous energy produces a deficiency in the current of the blood, as ina dry skin when inflamed or feverish, or kidneys inflamed, or their capillaries enlarged by cantharides so as to diminish secretion as just explained;