Ladies' manual of practical hydropathy (not the cold water system) ... / by Mrs. Smedley.

  • Smedley, Caroline Anne, Mrs.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ladies' manual of practical hydropathy (not the cold water system) ... / by Mrs. Smedley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    175/434 (page 155)
    is frequent iu proportion to the minuteness of the branch and its distance from the heart. It is also more frequent iu proportion as a part is exposed to pressure; hence the minute arteries and veins about a joint are distinguished for the multitude of their anasto- mosing branches; and above all, it is frequent in proportion to the importance of the organ ; hence the most remarkable anastomosis in the body is in the brain. By this provision care is taken that no part be deprived of its supply of blood; for if one channel be blocked up, a hundred more are open to the current, and the transmission of it to any particular region or organ by two or more channels, instead of through one trunk, is a part of the same pro- vision. Thus the fore-arm possesses four principal arteries with corresponding veins, aud the brain receives its blood through four totally independent canals. (The following engraving [B] shows the structure of the veins, with the provision to prevent the return of the blood in the same veins. It will be noticed that there is a perforation in the centre of the valve, and on the blood being forced back, it presses on the sides, and closes the centre perforation.) The veins and absorbents have not, like the arteries, an impel- ling engine, as the heart, to force forwards their contents ; there- fore they need and have the auxiliary means of valves. The arteries have no valves, because they receive the impulse of thG heart, with which they are connected at their outset with the aorta. They have, besides, an inherent power of circulating their own contents, arterial blood, which is the oxygenised, nutritious, and scarlet-coloured vital fluid. The causes of inflammatory con- gestion of the brain, varicose veins, and bleeding piles, all originate in the want of power in these valves to propel the venous blood forward, or obstruction in the liver; or, when the colon is full of hard feces, the venous blood cannot be propelled. The heart goes on propelling arterial blood through the free arteries, and the consequence is bleeding piles from rupture of these veins. Apo- plexy also takes place from the same cause, or from obstructing circulation of the serous and lymphatic absorbents. Our treat- ment raises the nervous power of these valves, and soon stops inflammation. The following is from Dr. Smith :— No one is able by a volun- tary effort to expel the whole contents of the lungs. Observation and experiment lead to the conclusion that the lungs, when moderately distended, contain at a medium about twelve pints of air. As one pint is inhaled at an ordinary inspiration, and some- what less than the same volume is expelled at an ordinary expira- tion, there remain present in the lungs, at a minimum, eleven pints of air. There is one act of respiration to four pulsa- tions of the heart; and, as in the ordinary state of health there are seventy-two pulsations, so there are eighteen respirations in a minute, or 25,920 in the twenty-four hours. About two ounces of blood are received by the heart at each dilatation of the auricle;