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
From all that has been said, it is evident, that fine injections,
which form a convenient method of knowing the capillary system of an
organ, cannot show which vessels of this system admit red blood, and
which circulate only white fluids. In fact, the injected matter passes
equally into each, and we cannot distinguish that, which in the living
body is very distinct.
In order to form a precise and accurate idea of the quantity of
blood that enters each of the organic systems during life, it is
indispensably necessary to dissect those systems during life. I shall
frequently have occasion in this work, to make this truth felt, which
appears to me to be of much importance in many respects. If a fine
injection but partially succeeds, it almost always shows vessels that
really exist, but which were not sanguineous during life. Even the
coarse injections of our dissecting rooms frequently exhibit these
phenomena, especially in the face, the neck, &c.; and much more so, if
the matter injected is very delicate, and managed with much address. I
cannot conceive why physiologists have always taken as an indication of
the blood vessels, the state of injected organs; by opening any part of
a living animal, they may clearly see how deceptive this method is.
Injections are of no advantage except in the great vessels, in which
the blood circulates in a mass by the influence of the heart; in the
capillaries, they do not reach the precise point that exists in nature.
I wish that in dissecting rooms, the pupils, after having dissected
the arteries and veins, would finish their labours upon the vessels
by the dissection of a living animal, for the purpose of seeing the
quantity of blood that each system has in its capillaries; this
knowledge is essential to the study of inflammations, fungous tumours,
&c. Anatomical cabinets in which preparations are kept, are of no use
in this respect; these preparations are more likely to deceive in
proportion as the injections have succeeded well.
III. _Of the proportions which exist in the Capillaries between the
Blood and the Fluids that differ from it._
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