General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
After having demonstrated that the organs resemble each other in a
common parenchyma of nutrition, it is unnecessary to prove that they
differ by the substances that are deposited there. Animal chemistry has
within a few years past so much elucidated this point, that it is not
worth while to waste time in refuting what has been written upon the
identity of the nutritive juice.
In fine, it is easy to conceive, how each parenchyma of nutrition
appropriates to itself according to the quantity of organic sensibility
it enjoys, the nutritive substances that are proper for it, and which
are brought to it by the circulation. It is not a phenomenon peculiar
to nutrition; it is observable in all the acts of the organic economy.
Thus the secretions take place only in consequence of the determined
quantity of this sensibility, which, placing each gland in relation
with the fluid that it should separate, makes it receive this fluid,
and reject the others; thus the red part of the blood does not
ordinarily pass into the exhalants, because the serous part is alone
in relation with their organic sensibility; thus the substances that
pass the intestines, do not stop in the biliary or pancreatic ducts,
although their diameter is sufficient to admit them; thus cantharides
are exclusively in relation with the sensibility of the kidneys,
mercury with that of the salivary organs, &c. &c.
We see from this, that the mechanism by which the parenchymas of
nutrition appropriate to themselves nutritive substances, is not an
insulated phenomenon, but a consequence of a general law of organic
sensibility. But why has this property as many degrees as there are
organs in the economy? Why do these degrees establish relations so
different between the organs and the substances that are foreign to
them? Let us stop here; let us be contented with proving this fact by
a great number of examples, without trying to discover the cause. We
could offer nothing but conjectures upon this subject.
These few notions upon the nutritive phenomena, though indirectly
connected with the subject of this volume, are not misplaced here;
because in these phenomena, the generative systems upon which we
are going to treat, perform the greatest part, and because we shall
frequently have occasion to refer to them in the examination of the
development of the organs, the development that authors have only
vaguely examined, upon which the most exact and the most judicious of
all physiologists, Haller, has only slightly glanced, but which however
ought to receive the particular attention of physicians, of those
especially who wish to consider diseases under the essential relation
of the influence that age has upon them.
CELLULAR SYSTEM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account