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.

    38/142 (page 30)
    again, without local enlargement we may have secre- tions diminished merely by failure of injecting power of the heart, as we see in typhus, still without resorting to spasm for explanation. But it may be required to account for the increased secretion which takes place sometimes with this weak pulse, the reason is, that though the circulation is weak, the capillaries are so deficient in nervous energy that they become patulous, as when there is colliquative sweat, and encreased flow from the kidneys with weak pulse, but the secretions in this case are very unlike those of health. Thus we can account for suppression of secretion (without attributing it to error loci or spasm) merely by the capillaries not having power from enlargement from weakness to pass the blood or serum to the secre- tory structures, in consequence of which the blood will return by the veins without secretion; but if by cold, as when it is applied to the loins, or by astringents we cause a contraction of the capillaries, or by taking off the injecting force by venesection we relieve them so as to allow them to contract they renew their secretion. All secretion is by capillaries, and we can conceive that by the secreting capillaries of one organ being longer than those of another a very different secretion may be formed in consequence of a greater length of time being allowed for the operation of the nervous influence. The healthy operations of the arteries have been men- ~ tioned so far as their continued and gradual deposition of matter in its various modifications, from solid bone, to gaseous exhalation, their depositions are very gradual, in proportion to the whole quantity of blood passing through the arteries, a great portion of which returns