General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 3 (of 3) — John Shaqi
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
In the case of which I have just spoken there is no gastric difficulty;
the sympathetic alteration of the stomach only extends to the fleshy
fibres. But most frequently this gastric difficulty appears at the
beginning of diseases in which there is local affection; sand-like
substances are vomited up; it is because then the organ essentially
affected, the lungs for example, if it is in a peripneumony, has acted
sympathetically not only on the fleshy fibres, but also upon the mucous
membrane. This excited increases its secretion; hence these sand-like
substances, which are nothing but the mucous juices mixed with the
gastric fluid and with the bile; now the presence of these substances
is often sufficient to make the stomach contract, and produce vomiting
which expels them.
From this it is evident that there can be sympathetic vomitings without
gastric difficulty, and sympathetic gastric difficulty with a vomiting
immediately produced. In the first case the fleshy fibres feel the
sympathetic influence of the affected organ; in the second it is the
mucous membrane. But how, when the lungs, the pleura, the skin,
&c. being affected, does the stomach come into action? I have said
that the word sympathy was only a veil for our ignorance in respect
to the relations of the organs to each other. Vomitings produced by
erysipelas, phlegmon, pleurisy, peripneumony, &c. are then most often
an effect exactly analogous to the increase of the action of the heart,
which produces fever. They resemble the cerebral derangement from
which arises delirium, a derangement which is much more rare, &c. All
these phenomena indicate that the other organs feel by reaction the
state of that which is affected, &c. Physicians who have not viewed
all these phenomena in a great and general manner, have confined their
treatment to too narrow bounds. Much attention was formerly paid to the
sympathetic derangement of the heart, and bleeding was much practised
in the beginning of diseases; for some years past much regard has been
had to the sympathetic derangement of the stomach, and emetics are
frequently given; perhaps before long, more attention will be given to
the weights of the head, pains in that part, watchfulness, drowsiness,
&c. which are very common sympathetic symptoms, and the treatment will
be directed to the brain. In these varieties judicious physicians
will regard all these phenomena in a general manner; they will see in
all a proof of that general agreement which disposes together all the
functions, which connects all and thus connects their derangements;
they will see each organ rise up, as it were against the evil which
is introduced into the economy, and each react in its own way; they
will see these reactions producing effects wholly different, according
to the organ reacting, fever arising from the reaction of the heart,
delirium, drowsiness, watchfulness, convulsions, &c. from that of
the brain, vomiting from that of the stomach, diarrhœa from that of
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