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
I shall say as much of the stomach; though its sympathetic reaction may
not be altogether as frequent as that of the heart, yet it becomes very
evident under many circumstances. Most local affections, especially
inflammations are accompanied with sympathetic vomitings. Various
fevers have in their commencement similar vomitings. It is in the
hospitals especially that we frequently observe these phenomena. Many
physicians have not considered these vomitings as merely sympathetic,
but as the index of a bilious affection, founded on this, that bile
is then almost always thrown up. But in all the animals that I have
opened, I have almost always seen the stomach when empty containing a
certain quantity of this fluid which had flowed back from the duodenum;
other authors have also made similar observations; so that it appears
that in the state of vacuity, the existence of bile in the stomach
is a natural phenomenon. Hence it is not astonishing, that in the
commencement of diseases, and even in their course, the stomach being
sympathetically excited and thus becoming the seat of vomiting, more or
less of this fluid should be thrown up. It would be brought up even in
health if vomiting is then excited by an emetic; this is what sometimes
happens in the morning when the stomach is empty, if any cause foreign
to an affection of the liver, as the sight of a disgusting object,
produces vomiting; the bile then comes out like every thing else that
is contained in the stomach. I do not say that oftentimes the liver
being sympathetically excited in the commencement of diseases, does
not furnish more bile, that this superabundant bile flowing into the
stomach, does not make this viscus contract; but certainly this is
not most commonly the case; we vomit bile as we discharge it by the
anus, because it is found in the stomach and intestines, and not
because it is superabundant. If vomiting was a natural function, the
bilious evacuations in this way would be as natural as the greenish
tinge of the excrements, which is always found in a state of health.
We see then, from this, that the bilious vomitings are, in many cases,
purely accessory, and that the essential phenomenon is the sympathetic
contraction of the stomach.
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