Popular Lectures on Zoonomia. Garnett Thomas

the body, to repair the continual waste, by the appetites of hunger and thirst. For the stomach being gradually emptied of its contents, and the body, in some degree, exhausted by exercise, we experience a disagreeable sensation in the region of the stomach, accompanied by a desire to eat, at first slight, but gradually increasing, and at last growing intolerable, unless it be satisfied.

      When the fluid parts have been much dissipated, or when we have taken, by the mouth, any dry food, or acrid substance, we experience a sensation of heat in the fauces, and at the same time a great desire of swallowing liquids. The former sensation is called hunger, and the latter thirst.

      From the back part of the mouth passes a tube, called the oesophagus or gullet, its upper end is wide and open, spread behind the tongue to receive the masticated aliment: the lower part of this pipe, after it has passed through the thorax, and pierced the diaphragm, enters the stomach, which is a membranous bag, situated under the left side of the diaphragm: its figure nearly resembles the pouch of a bagpipe, the left end being most capacious; the upper side is concave, and the lower convex: it has two orifices, both on its upper part; the left, which is a continuation of the oesophagus, and through which the food passes into the stomach, is named cardia; and the right, through which the food is conveyed out of the stomach, is called pylorus: within this last orifice is a circular valve, which, in some degree, prevents the return of the aliment into the stomach.

      From the pylorus, or right orifice of the stomach, arise the intestines, or bowels, which consist of a long and large tube, making several circumvolutions, in the cavity of the abdomen; this tube is about five or six times as long as the body to which it belongs. Though it is one continued pipe, it has been divided, by anatomists, into six parts, three small, three large. The three small intestines are the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum; the duodenum commences at the pylorus, and is continued into the jejunum, which is so called from its being generally found empty: the ileum is only a prolongation of the jejunum, and terminates in the first of the great intestines, called the caecum. The other great guts are the colon and the rectum.

      The whole of what has been described is only a production of the same tube, beginning at the oesophagus. It is called by anatomists the intestinal canal, or prima via, because it is the first passage of the food. It has circular muscular fibres, which give it a power of contracting when irritated by distension; and this urges forward the food which is contained in it. This occasions a worm like motion of the whole intestines, which is called their peristaltic motion.

      The mesentery is a membrane beginning loosely on the loins, and thence extending to all the intestines; which it preserves from twisting by their peristaltic motion. It serves also to sustain all the vessels going to and from the intestines, namely the arteries, veins, lacteals, and nerves; it also contains several glands, called, from their situation, mesenteric glands.

      The lacteal vessels consist of a vast number of fine pellucid tubes, which arise by open mouths from the intestines, and proceeding thence through the mesentery, they frequently unite, and form fewer and larger vessels, which pass through the mesenteric glands, into a common receptacle or bag, called the receptacle of the chyle. The use of these vessels is to absorb the fluid part of the digested aliment, called chyle, and convey it into the receptacle of the chyle, that it may be thence carried through the thoracic duct into the blood.

      The receptacle of the chyle is a membranous bag, about two thirds of an inch long, and one third of an inch wide, at its superior part it is contracted into a slender membranous pipe, called the thoracic duct, because its course is principally through the thorax; it passes between the aorta and the vena azygos, then obliquely over the oesophagus, and great curvature of the aorta, and continuing its course towards the internal jugular vein, it enters the left subclavian vein on its superior part.

      There are several other viscera besides those I have described, which are subservient to digestion; among these may be mentioned the liver, gall bladder, and pancreas. The liver is the largest gland in the body, and is situated immediately under the diaphragm, principally on the right side. Its blood vessels that compose it as a gland, are the branches of the vena portarum, which, as I mentioned in the last lecture, enters the liver and distributes its blood like an artery. From this blood the liver secretes the bile, which is conveyed by the hepatic duct, towards the intestines: before this duct reaches the intestines, it is joined by another, coming from the gall bladder: these two ducts uniting, form a common duct, which enters the duodenum obliquely, about four inches below the pylorus of the stomach.

      The gall bladder, which is a receptacle of bile, is situated between the stomach and the liver; and the bile which comes from the liver, along the hepatic duct, partly passes into the duodenum, and partly along the cystic duct into the gall bladder. When the stomach is full, it presses on the gall bladder, which will squeeze out the bile into the duodenum at the time when it is most wanted.

      The bile is a thick bitter fluid, of a yellowish green colour, composed chiefly of soda and animal oil, forming a soap; and it is most probably in consequence of this saponaceous property that it assists digestion, by causing the different parts of the food to unite together by intermediate affinity. When the bile is prevented from flowing into the intestines, by any obstruction in the ducts, digestion is badly performed, costiveness takes place, and the excrements are of a white colour, from being deprived of the bile. This fluid, stagnating in the gall bladder, is absorbed by the lymphatics, and carried into the blood, communicating to the whole surface of the body a yellow tinge, and other symptoms of jaundice.