of the Stomach. 253 



health, and much more in disease. I have seen urine of 

 a deep green colour. The secretion of the mucus mat- 

 ter from the schneiderian membrane, is greatly altered, 

 by what is usually termed a cold in the head. Whenev- 

 er I take cold, the whole force of the disorder is, in most 

 instances, spent upon the stomach and intestines. Why 

 should not the gastric liquor be affected by it ? Nothing- 

 perhaps will serve better to illustrate this subject, than 

 the changes, which frequently take place, in the matter 

 discharged from ulcers. The simple purulent ulcer is 

 a disease, .it is well knovrn, entirely local, yet it is capa- 

 ble of undergoing great changes, from affections of the 

 s}stem. In healthy persons the matter secreted on its 

 surflice, is a mJld bland liquor, called by surgeons laiidi- 

 hle pus. In persons greatl}^ debilitated and highly irrita- 

 ble, it not unfrequentlyp)Ossesses considerable acrimony 

 and foetor. A healthy patient, vdio has undergone an am- 

 putation of a limb, v/ill usually, when the wound becomes 

 an ulcer, or when the secretion of matter takes place on 

 its surface, experience considerable mitigation of pain ; 

 the discharge will, with proper treatment, be a laudihle 

 pus^ and the patient will speedily recover : but if, v/hen 

 the inflammation in the wound subsides, and the pus is se- 

 creted, the patient, instead of being kept on nourishing 

 diet, should be confined to that of a contrary nature, and 

 should receive few or no stimulant or tonic medicines, 

 the matter secreted vv'ould soon change its colour, become 

 thin, acrid, and fcstid, and excite g-rcat irritation in the 

 patient ; but if, in this situation, he is furnished with a 

 due quantity of bark and porter, or gocd v^'ine, and nour- 

 ishing diet, all the unpleasant symptoms will in twent}'- 

 four hours, be a:reatlv mitirated, and if this coarse is Dur- 

 sued a little time, be wholly removed. I suppose no one 

 ■will contend that, in such a case, thQ pus is decomposed. 

 It will probably be admitted by all, that it is secreted in a 

 morbid state. Is there not a morbid secretion in every 

 phagedenic ulcer ? Who ever heard of ear Vv'ax decom- 

 posed in the ear, or milk in the breast of a female ? Es- 

 pecially can it be supposed that these things will take 

 place, if the several fluids are secreted in a healthy state ? 

 One fact further rekitive to this subject, and I have done. 



