Human physiology / By John Elliotson ... With which is incorporated, much of the elementary part of the 'Institutiones physiologicae' of J.F. Blumenbach.

  • John Elliotson
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Human physiology / By John Elliotson ... With which is incorporated, much of the elementary part of the 'Institutiones physiologicae' of J.F. Blumenbach. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    creeping upon itc; it gives very great tone and elasticity to the arteries. “ 11. The middle coat consists of transverse fibres d, lunated or falciform, and almost of a fleshy nature: hence this has the name of muscular coat, and appears to be the chief seat of the vital powers of the arteries. “ III. ihe inner coat lining the cavity of the arteries is highly polished and smooth,” and is called the serous coat. It is brittle, so as to be cracked by a blow, a ligature fixed around the 'iv hole artery, or torsion of the vessel, while the external coat remains entne. The middle coat may give way at the same time, but frequently lacerates, through the pressure of the blood, by degrees only; and the external coat will remain entire, merely dilated into a pouch, for a length of time,—a state called ialse aneurysm. Dr. Hales found the carotid of a dog burst at once by the pressure of a column of water less than 190 feet high.e “ This is much more distinct in the trunks and larger branches than in the smaller vessels. “ Every artery originates, either “ From the pulmonary artery (the vena arteriosa of the ancients), which proceeds from the anterior ventricle of the heart, and goes to the lungs; Oi fi om the aorta, which proceeds from the posterior ven- tricle, and is distributed throughout the rest of the system. These trunks divide into branches, and these again into twigs, &c. According to the commonly received opinion, the united capacity of the branches, in any part of the sanguiferous'system, is greater than that of the trunk from which they arise. But I fear that this is too general an assertion, and even that the measure of the diameter has been sometimes improperly con- founded with that of the area. I myself have never been able to verify it, although my experiments have been frequently repeated, and made, not on vessels injected with wax, after the “ Fr. Ruysch, Respons. ad ep. problematicam. iii. Also his Thesaur. Anal iv tab. 3.” d “ B. S. Albinus, Annot. Academ. 1. iv. tab. 5. fig. i. e Hcemastatics.