OF THE ABSORBENT VESSELS. 133 



ing or liberating the vein under the finger and thumb.? Dr. Se- 

 galas cut a portion of living intestine from the rest of the 

 canal, and passed a ligature around its blood-vessels, leaving the 

 absorbents free, and introduced a solution of nux vomica for an 

 hour without ill effect : he then liberated the vein, and the 

 animal was poisoned in six minutes. Dr. Magendie mentions- 

 the following experiments, which, if to be depended upon, 



p When the poison was placed in a wound, it might contaminate the blood 

 without being taken up by absorbing extremities of vessels ; and, if Magendie is 

 right in believing that fluids soak through even living solids, we see how very 

 readily it might all reach the blood. It is universally known, that, after death, 

 fluids penetrate through the various textures of the body; the aqueous humour 

 diminishes in the eye, which consequently becomes flat, the intestines near the gall- 

 bladder become yellow, and water poured into the stomach or intestines exudes. 

 (A. Kaau, Perspiratio dicta Hippocrati, 563.) Hence, especially in a hot atmo- 

 sphere, if the examination of a dead subject is long delayed, parts may become so 

 dyed with imbibed blood, that their redness may be, and often is, mistaken for 

 inflammation. (See an important paper by Dr. John Davy, Med. Chir. Trans. 

 vol. x. ; also the more recent statements in Dr. Andral's Precis d'Anat. Pathologic, 

 t. i. p. 63. sqq.) Dr. W. Hunter contended that this imbibition occurs also dur- 

 ing life, although not in the case of blood-vessels, and others admitted it. {Med. 

 Commentaries.} Dr. Magendie supports the same opinion. After separating a 

 blood-vessel from the surrounding cellular membrane, and laying tincture of nux 

 vomica upon it, the animal was poisoned, and the blood within tasted bitter ; ink, 

 placed in the pleura of a young dog, dyed, in less than an hour, the pericardium, 

 heart, and intercostal muscles. Dr. Fodera introduced a solution of prussiate 

 of potass into the pleura, and of sulphate of iron into the abdomen, of a living 

 animal, when the two fluids became blue by union at the diaphragm, in five or 

 six minutes, and instantaneously if a galvanic current was established. (Jour- 

 nal de Physiologic, t. iii.) Still there is not the slightest reason to imagine that 

 the natural fluids of parts penetrate their substance during life and in a sound 

 condition. (See Hewson's arguments against transudation, Experimental In- 

 quiry, p. ii.) Dr. Magendie found absorption (of poisonous matters, for example, 

 applied to surfaces) greatly impeded on rendering the vascular system turgid by 

 injecting water into the veins, and equally accelerated on lessening the repletion 

 by blood-letting. We should expect that the greater the repletion of the san- 

 guineous system, the more difficulty must the contents of the absorbents have 

 to advance, and v. v.; and from the wise arrangements observed in every function, 

 we should conceive, that, supposing absorption a vital action, (as I cannot but 

 believe it to be, as soon as a substance has fairly entered the vessel perhaps by 

 mere physical attraction,) the vessels would be less disposed to propel their con- 

 tents in proportion as repletion exists. How it favours, as Dr. Magendie fancies, 

 the idea of absorption being a mere imbibition through the coats of the absorbents, 

 a notion unsupported and contradictory to established facts, I cannot see. 

 (In this I fully agree with Dr. Bostock, An Elementary System of Physiology , 

 vol. ii. p. 587. sqq.) 



