j^ Extracts from Dr. Yeats's 



It is not intended to deny the influence which the liver possesses 

 over the intestinal actions by the superabundance, the deficiency, 

 or the morbid quality of its secretion ; but the diseased impression, 

 which is made upon this great gland by irregularities in the tor- 

 tuous tube of the intestines^ has not been sufficiently ascertained, 

 or properly appreciated. It is, in many cases of the latter kind, 

 accompanied by what are called bihous symptoms, that an injudi- 

 cious resort has been had to mercury, the value of which, how- 

 ever, as an excellent remedy in various kinds of cases, I am at the 

 same time not at all inclined to depreciate, as I shall have occasion 

 to mention during these lectures. The control which the intes- 

 tinal actions exert over the feelings and the comfort of the indivi- 

 dual, the harassing and distressing sensations in the body which 

 arise from their morbid state, would, at any time, direct our atten- 

 tion to a consideration of the diseases which affect this tube, either 

 in its separate divisions or in the whole as one continued sub- 

 stance. An oppressed stomach, from the superabundant quantity 

 or vitiated quality of its contentKS, a torpid state or irregular move- 

 ments of the intestinal canal, a congestion of their vessels, or an 

 imperfection in the nervous energy there, with or without morbid 

 structure, will produce irritubihty of mind in different grades, from 

 simple eccentricity af conduct and confusion of ideas to complete 

 insanity. Morositas ilia ac segritudo, qua homo sibi aliisque oneri est 

 crebro ex mala ventriculi conditione oritur (Soemmering.) How- 

 ever trite then the subject may be, however beaten the path, which 

 has been gone over, no attempt should be considered superfluous 

 on any matter, until that matter be brought to all possible perfec- 

 tion, more especially when the greatest of all blessings, health, 

 both of body and mind, is intimately connected with the subject. 



.HaviHgj'in the spring of 1817, delivered the Gulstonian lectures 

 on the structure, functions, and diseases of the Duodenum, ex- 

 tracts from which are published in the sixth volume of the Trans- 

 actions of the College, and the public having been pleased to 

 stamp some value on the hints I threw out respecting them, I 

 avail myself^ being called upon to deliver the Cronian lectures for 

 the present year, of the opportunity to offer to your notice some 

 observations I have made on the structure, functions, and some 

 diseases of the Colon ; being convinced by experience that as cer- 

 tain morbid conditions of the Duodenum have been treated as 

 affections of the liver, so have some deviations from healthy action 

 in the colon been improperly treated as a dyspeptic state of the 

 Stomach j it being recollected Jhat the great arch [of the former 



