A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/256 (page 25)
    much itself when deprived of the vital power by which it is enabled to resist its action. When to these facts we add, that by means of the muscular power of the stomach, the food, when duly prepared by the action of the gastric juice, is pro- pelled into the duodenum, we state the sum of our knowledge on this subject. These facts, however, are far from affording an explanation of the process which takes place in the stomach. It does not appear from the observations of any of the authors here referred to, by what means the fluid which is secreted by it is uniformly applied to the food, nor upon what principle the food which is prepared for the duodenum is separated from the rest. Mr. Hunter found that even when part of the stomach it- self had been dissolved by the gastric juice, the food last taken remained wholly unchanged. This fact alone is sufficient to militate against the idea assumed by some, that by the mus- cular power of the stomach its contents are so moved as to be continually in the act of being mixed together, and with the gastric juice, by which their uniform solution is effected. Ac- cording to this view of the subject also, it would be difficult to account for the gradual discharge of the contents of the sto- mach into the first intestine. This intestine must either for a long time cease to receive any food from the stomach after every addition made to the contents of the latter, or receive food in different stages of solution, an imperfection in a natural process which is in opposition to every thing we know of the animal economy. My attention was particularly called to the subject by finding from many trials, that when the eighth pair of nerves is divided in the neck of a rabbit, and one portion of each nerve folded back *, immediately after the animal has taken a full meal, after a fast of whatever continuance, none but undi- gested food is found in its stomach, provided it has been al- lowed to live for a certain number of hours after the operation. * It has been found by repeated experiments, that if neither of the di- vided ends be displaced, some nervous influence still passes by the divided nerve, and that, although the divided ends be separated by a space of even a quarter of an inch. Seethe Journa/ of the Royal Institution, No. 23, page