The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully.

  • Gully, James Manby, 1808-1883.
Date:
[1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    congestion is to interfere vitli tlie quality of the blood, and its organic sympathy with the vessels which contain it. As all secretions are derived from the blood, we might expect tliat they would not be of a proper kind when ])roceeding from blood so circumstanced. Accordingly, instead of the ordinary insipid mucus, there is at one time acid mucus poured out, forming the acidity so much talked about by dyspeptics, and which, as the membrane which secretes the spittle is a continuation of that which lines the stomacli, is also experienced in the mouth. At another time, the power of the ganglionic nerves over the vessels of the gastric mucous membrane is so irregularly exer- cised, that, instead of mucus, the elements of mucus, in the shape of gases, are poured out from the blood, and the much-dreaded Jiatidence is produced. Isow, suppose a quantity of this acid, or volumes of this air secreted in a stomach lined with mucous membrane, on the outer side of which is a thin layer of muscular, moving fibres, whose office, in health, it is to contract and move the food about in the stomach. The acid and the air, being unnatural matters, bring these muscular fibres into an unnatural state of contraction, and spasmodic con- traction of them takes place; according to the degree and exact locality of which is the sensation produced. If the middle part of the stomach is the seat of spasmodic con- traction (as usually happens in acidity) there is a sense of dragging or gnawing at the pit of the stomach, or a pain in the breastbone above the pit of the stomach. If the great sac or left end of the stomach contracts morbidly, it drags upon the passage from the stomach to the throat, and the sensation called heartburn is experienced—a mixed sense of acute pain at the pit of the stomach, and drawing in the throat, and occurring mostly when wind is present. Sometimes these pains are sufficiently acute to be felt completely through to the back, between the shoulder-blades. The spasmodic contraction of the stomach thus produced has various degi'ees. One of these causes the sensation of hunger. Natural hunger is nothing more than a greater than usual contractile movement of the empty stomach, a sort of slight cramp, which is relieved when the hollow muscle, the stomach, has something to contract upon. For this purpose anything will do, from water to pebble stones. In confirmation of this view of the physiology of