Zoonomia, Vol. I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 655 pages of information about Zoonomia, Vol. I.

Zoonomia, Vol. I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 655 pages of information about Zoonomia, Vol. I.

3.  Many instances of milk and chyle found in ulcers are given by Haller, El.  Physiol. t. vii. p. 12, 23, which admit of no other explanation than by supposing, that the chyle, imbibed by one branch of the absorbent system, was carried to the ulcer, by the inverted motions of another branch of the same system.

4.  Mrs. P. on the second day after delivery, was seized with a violent purging, in which, though opiates, mucilages, the bark, and testacea were profusely used, continued many days, till at length she recovered.  During the time of this purging, no milk could be drawn from her breasts; but the stools appeared like the curd of milk broken into small pieces.  In this case, was not the milk taken up from the follicles of the pectoral glands, and thrown on the intestines, by a retrogression of the intestinal absorbents? for how can we for a moment suspect that the mucous glands of the intestines could separate pure milk from the blood?  Doctor Smelly has observed, that loose stools, mixed with milk, which is curdled in the intestines, frequently relieves the turgescency of the breasts of those who studiously repel their milk.  Cases in Midwifery, 43, No. 2. 1.

5.  J.F.  Meckel observed in a patient, whose urine was in small quantity and high coloured, that a copious sweat under the arm-pits, of a perfectly urinous smell, stained the linen; which ceased again when the usual quantity of urine was discharged by the urethra.  Here we must believe from analogy, that the urine was first secreted in the kidneys, then re-absorbed by the increased action of the urinary lymphatics, and lastly carried to the axillae by the retrograde motions of the lymphatic branches of those parts.  As in the jaundice it is necessary, that the bile should first be secreted by the liver, and re-absorbed into the circulation, to produce the yellowness of the skin; as was formerly demonstrated by the late Dr. Munro, (Edin.  Medical Essays) and if in this patient the urine had been re-absorbed into the mass of blood, as the bile in the jaundice, why was it not detected in other parts of the body, as well as in the arm-pits?

6.  Cathartic and vermifuge medicines applied externally to the abdomen, seem to be taken up by the cutaneous branch of lymphatics, and poured on the intestines by the retrograde motions of the lacteals, without having passed the circulation.

For when the drastic purges are taken by the mouth, they excite the lacteals of the intestines into retrograde motions, as appears from the chyle, which is found coagulated among the faeces, as was shewn above, (sect. 2 and 4.) And as the cutaneous lymphatics are joined with the lacteals of the intestines, by frequent anastomoses; it would be more extraordinary, when a strong purging drug, absorbed by the skin, is carried to the anastomosing branches of the lacteals unchanged, if it should not excite them into retrograde action as efficaciously, as if it was taken by the mouth, and mixed with the food of the stomach.

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