General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 3 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
This system, one of the most important in the animal economy, differs
from most others in this, that the texture which is peculiar to it is
not precisely the same in all the organs that compose it. The fibres
of a muscle of animal life would as well serve for the structure
of any other muscle of the same system. The tendinous fibres, the
cartilaginous, osseous textures, &c. are everywhere the same. On the
contrary, the texture of the liver would not serve to compose the
kidney, nor that of this last the salivary glands. The glandular system
then has a resemblance in its different parts only by certain general
attributes which have many exceptions.
Authors have given the name of glands to organs to which it does not
belong; such as the thyroid, the pineal, the lymphatic glands, those
especially that are in the neighbourhood of the bronchia, the thymus,
the suprarenal, &c. We should call by this name only a body from which
flows, by one or many ducts, a fluid which this body separates from
the blood which it receives by the vessels that go to it. 1st. On the
head, the salivary, the lachrymal, the Meibomian and the ceruminous
glands of the ear, and the amygdalæ.; 2d, the mammæ on the thorax; 3d,
in the abdomen, the liver, the pancreas and the kidneys; 4th, in the
pelvis, the prostate and the testicles; 5th, on the whole trunk and the
face, the very numerous collection of mucous glands; these are nearly
all that are dependant upon the glandular system; all the other organs
which belong to it by this name, are foreign to it in their texture,
their properties, their life and their functions. In this point of
view, the division of Vicq d’Azyr is inaccurate.
The extremities contain nothing which belong to this system, no
doubt because the fluids which it separates almost all serve for the
functions of organic life, whilst in the extremities every thing is in
relation to animal functions.
ARTICLE FIRST.
SITUATION, FORMS, DIVISION, &C. OF THE GLANDULAR SYSTEM.
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