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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    about tlio upper orifice of tlic stomach, where tlie fpillet ex})aiids into that organ ; it then involves the midriff, ami tliut ])owerful muscle aids in the violent convulsion that marks the act. Lastly, there is the actual spasm of the stomachy where every muscular fibre of it is in the most intense state of contraction, precluding the exit of anything whatever, solid, liquid, or aeriform, from its cavity, and inducing the most alarming sympathies in the organs of the chest, and in tlie brain. It is most apt to occur in gouty persons; but others are liable to it. But sometimes the congestion of the nerves of the stomach is so great as to oppress their function, to prevent them from sending to the muscular coat of the stomach the due contractile energy. In this case there is loss of appetite. Between this state of the nerves and that which causes craving, there is the same difference as between the condition of the brain which causes delirium, and that which is accompanied by stupor; in the former there is an excess of blood, enough to produce excess of brain func- tion ; in the latter there is a greater excess, enough to oppress the brain. Thirst is an occasional symptom of indigestion. When the irritation of the stomach is greater than usual, it acts as a stimulant to the blood-vessels of the membrane which lines the throat, causes them to contract, and thus dimi- nishes the secretion of that membrane, which becomes dry. That such is the fact is shown by another fact— namely, that washing the mouth, or gargling the throat with cold water, will relieve thirst. It is a more continued symptom of mucous than of nervous dyspepsia ; but when it occurs in the latter, it is much more intense and pressing for a time. With the deranged ganglionic power, deranged secretion takes place, as we have seen, in the stomach itself. But the same holds with regard to the membrane which lines the fauces, the mouth, the tongue, and the eyelids : for it is a continuation of the same which lines the stomach. Accordingly, we find in dyspepsia, either deficient or diseased spittle., very frequently thick and tenacious, less frequently thin and acrid—the former in mucous, the latter in nervous indigestion. The spittle also tastes acid, bitter, metallic, sweet, mawkish, &c.; whicli, no doubt, is owing in part to the disordered sensation of the nerves of