On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

  • Wilson, James Arthur, 1795-1882.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    that of the re-agency of the muscle upon the blood. States of the blood, it is admitted, imply states of the muscle; and in the full developement of diseased action, the converse of this rule is equally true. Neither in health nor in disease, is the muscle to be rec^arded merely as the organ of motion, as minis- tering only to an occasional and mechanical function ; but collectively and in the mass, as the most exten- sive of living structures, as continually employing and employed upon a large proportion of the entire mass of the blood, thus elaborating the great common material of the body, and preparing it for circulation elsewhere. And this, be it remembered, is true of the muscle at all times, whether in action or repose. It is a necessary result of the elementary business by which the muscle lives and grows; of the common healthy nutrition of its own peculiar structure. The muscles, indeed, in their constant function of nutrition, are with respect to the blood, as glands; ever busy in separating from it the materials of their own growth, and restoring it in an altered state to the general current of the circulation. Thus conducted to the inner business of a muscle by its blood,—to the elementary process of its extreme texture by which it lives, grows, and contracts, we recognise in the healthy function of the organ, the same independent power of action which is so remark- able in its spasmodic disorders. Of this separate and self-creating principle of action, there is more evidence in the functional diseases of the several organic struc-