The condition and management of the intestine after abdominal section : considered in the light of physiological facts / by John D. Malcolm.

  • Malcolm, John David.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The condition and management of the intestine after abdominal section : considered in the light of physiological facts / by John D. Malcolm. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    plexus) gives branches “ to the muscularis mucosae, the smooth muscular fibres of the villi, and the glands of the intestine.There is evidence that the nerves of the bowel are in intimate physiological connection with the central nervous system.® But the plexuses in the wall of the gut possess also, and in a very high degree, an auto- matic power comparable to that of the ganglion-cells of the heart. This automatic power enables the intestine even “ when cut out of the body to execute, apparently spontaneously, movements for some time; and during life it plays an important part in the pei’formance of all the functions of the gut. These functions are therefore readily iufluenced by local stimuli, which may be chemical, mechanical, thermal, or electric in their nature, and which may act from within the bowel or from without. Or the stimulus may consist in some condition of the blood passing through the intestinal vessels. The effect of stimulation of Auerbach^s plexus is first to increase peristalsis, which may become violent, spas- modic, and painful. But if the stimulus be sufficiently severe or prolonged, paresis or complete paralysis of the muscular power of the gut results. The condition of the blood flowing through the intestinal capillaries has a most important influence on the intestinal movements. Marked irritability, followed by paralysis of the intestine, may be induced by congestion or plugging of its vessels; and the spontaneous evacuation of the bowel which some- times occurs on the approach of death is attributable to vascular changes in its wall. Inflammation too may be accompanied by irritability of the muscular wall of the bowel, as is frequently observed in catarrh of its mucous membrane, while severe peritonitis produces absolute mus- cular paralysis of the gut.^ The secretion of the digestive juices is also under the ^ Stirliug’s translatiou of Lamlois’' I’liyeiology,’ 2ud edit., p. 337. * Ibid., p. 350. Ibid., p, 337. ■* Ibid., p. 337, et seq.
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