General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 2 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
1st. I have very often opened subjects that have died during a
hemorrhage; I have had occasion to examine with this view the
bronchial, gastric, intestinal and uterine surfaces; I have never
seen the least mark of erosion, notwithstanding the precaution of
carefully washing the surfaces, of letting them macerate and even
examining them with a glass. 2d. The following experiment uniformly
succeeds upon the wombs of women who have died during menstruation,
and often even at other times; by pressing them, there issues from the
mucous surface a greater or less number of little bloody drops, which
evidently correspond with vascular extremities, and being wiped off,
no erosion can be seen. 3d. The analogy of all the other open surfaces
that pour out blood, and which evidently do it by their exhalants,
is a proof that the same phenomenon has the same seat in the mucous
surfaces. 4th. The womb would be only a mass of cicatrices in females
of advanced age, if there had been a rupture in it in menstruation.
5th. In active hemorrhages, in which there is evidently a congestion of
blood previous to its escape, we can conceive, to a certain degree of
the rupture of the small vessels; but in passive hemorrhages, in those
in which the organic sensibility being annihilated, seems to allow of
a simple transudation through the exhalants, how can we conceive of
these ruptures? 6th. We understand with difficulty how an evacuation,
which is often produced with an extreme rapidity, which ceases in one
place and immediately appears in another, which is subjected to all
the sympathetic influences, we understand, I say, with difficulty how
it can happen from rupture. 7th. Observe menstruation, furnishing
sometimes for one moment blood, and not giving it the next, renewing
twenty or thirty times a day, in certain affections, these alterations
of flowing and ceasing to flow; it would be necessary then, that at
each time the wounds should open and be cicatrized. 8th. Besides,
compare hemorrhages evidently produced by rupture upon the mucous
surfaces, such as those, which in wounds of the head, take place from
the nostrils, the ears, &c.; those, which by a fall upon the rectum,
sometimes happen from the bladder; those which, in too great efforts in
coughing, arise upon the bronchial surface; those of which the stomach
is the seat from the action of different poisons, &c. &c.; compare, I
say, these hemorrhages, and many analogous ones that I could mention,
with those that take place spontaneously from the mucous surfaces; you
will see that they do not resemble them in their phenomena and their
duration; that by suppressing them, they do not give rise to others;
that they are independent of all kinds of sympathetic influence; that
the passions have no effect upon their cessation or their production,
whilst they have so powerful an influence upon the others.
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