Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry.

  • Jamieson Boyd Hurry
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the retention aggravate each other. The usual reflexes lie dormant and peristalsis is in abeyance. But sooner or later the burden may become in¬ supportable. The machinery of vomiting is started and the stomach pumps up its contents perhaps to the extent of a bucketful. Even a greatly dilated stomach may in this way be again braced up, the unburdening leading to great amelioration or even to actual recovery. Active peristalsis may succeed in curing obstinate constipation where faecal stasis has led to paralysis of the intestinal wall and the paralysis to yet more obstinate stasis. Dangerous correlations are in operation. But after a period of rest vigorous peristalsis may set in, and sweep away even a great accumulation of faeces. Another illustration may be found in heart failure, where secondary visceral congestion has aggravated the heart failure. Here the Vis medicatrix may take the form of a sharp attack of gastric or intestinal haemorrhage ; indeed such a loss of blood is often a blessing in disguise and prove vitce artifex, mortis fugator. On the one hand the overburdened heart is relieved, while on the other the engorged viscera can resume work and again supply wholesome nutriment to the failing myocardium. The lost equilibrium of the vascular system is restored.