The function and form of the bladder are familiarly known. It is the recipient of the kidney secretions, and contains them till voided to the urinary canal. It is a tough, elastic structure, guarded at the exit by a contractile file, a means of which the urine can be retained until the quantity becomes excessive. The plate brings out the entire urinal tracks, from the bladder to the vagina, and presents a fine and useful anatomical and physiological study.Again within this section the author in his no-nonsense, concise and to the point and descriptive of process just enough, but not too much. The section is not terribly illuminating, and read somewhat like sixth grade biology report that lightly describes a topic but really doesn't tell you any useful information. The lack of information as it can to using a light bulb from a hundred years ago versus using advanced halogen light today or possibly a high-end fixture such as
kichler lighting. It just wasn't a lot of information provided.Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:
- Cause of Goitre
Cause of Goitre. — the swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck, producing the repulsive deformity of Goitre, or Derby Shire neck, seems to be intimately connected with mineral impurities and water. In Nottingham England, where this disease is not unfrequently met with, the common people attribute it to the hardness of the water, and in other parts of Great Britain is found to prevail only, or at least especially, in those districts where the magnesium limestone formation abounds.
Okay I have to admit that this time I had no idea what goiter was, or why it was spelled with what appears to be a French spelling. But I was curious and so I decided to look it up on Wikipedia. When I did this, I found thisdisturbing pictureof a woman with an extremely swollen neck.So as I look this up on Wikipedia, I learned that basically this disease occurs due to a lack of iodine. It’s not caused by the presence of chemicals as thought 100 years ago,but by the absenceof iodine in a person’s diet.
Today salt is commonly fortified with iodine, which helps to prevent the spread of this disease.
Here’s an interesting history on the treatment of goitre from Wikipedia, which might help with this and more perspective.
Chinese physicians of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) were the first to successfully treat patients with goiter by using the iodine-rich thyroid gland of animals such as sheep and pigs—in raw, pill, or powdered-mixture-in-wine form.[1] This was outlined in Zhen Quan’s (died 643 AD) book, as well as several others.[2] One Chinese book (i.e. The Pharmacopoeia of the Heavenly Husbandman) asserted that iodine-rich sargassum was used to treat goiter patients by the 1st century BC, but this book was written much later.[3]
In the 12th century, al-Jurjani, a Persian physician, provided the first description of Graves’ disease after noting the association of goitre and exophthalmos in his Thesaurus of the Shah of Khwarazm, the major medical dictionary of its time.[4][5] Al-Jurjani also established an association between goitre and palpitation.[6] The disease was later named after Irish doctor Robert James Graves,[7] who described a case of goiter with exophthalmos in 1835. The German Karl Adolph von Basedow also independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840, while earlier reports of the disease were also published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810 respectively,[8] and by the English physician Caleb Hillier Parry (a friend of Edward Jenner) in the late 18th century.[9]
Paracelsus (1493–1541) was the first person to propose a relationship between goitre and minerals (particularly lead) in drinking water.[10] Iodine was later discovered by Bernard Courtois in 1811 from seaweed ash.
Goitre was previously common in many areas that were deficient in iodine in the soil. For example, in the English Midlands, the condition was known as Derbyshire Neck. In the United States, goitre was found in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Intermountain regions. The condition now is practically absent in affluent nations, where table salt is supplemented with iodine. However, it is still prevalent in India,[11] Central Asia and Central Africa.
Some health workers fear that a resurgence of goitre might occur because of the trend to use rock salt and/or sea salt, which has not been fortified with iodine. New research indicates that there may in fact be a tendency to inherit an increased vulnerability to goitre.
Interesting, but I’m glad we figured out the cause and the solution for this one. Next up, Viagra and acne cream,
just kidding seems like we’ve covered some of the more serious things over the last hundred years and now fiddling around with less serious things. - Breathing
Breathing.–Respiration, or the act of breathing, consists of thealternate inspiration and expiration of air to and from the lungs; in the process of which the lungs themselves are almost passive managements, since their contraction expansion takes place by means of the muscles which surround the chest. The diaphragm or midriff, which, when at rest in the lungs empty, forms a beautiful dome to the abdominal cavity, becomes depressed during the inspiratory process, and presses the walls of the abdomen outward. At the same time the ribs become elevated, thus increasing the size of the chest. Thereupon the elastic lungs expand to occupy the entire space, whilst the current of air, in obedience to a well known physical law, rushes down the windpipe and enters the numerous air cells, the result of which is inspiration. In expiration the reverse of this takes place. We bend forward, draw the abdominal walls inward, press the diaphragm upward, whilst the ribs are pulled downward. All these acts simultaneously performed decrease the size of the chest, and force or expel the air from the lungs.
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This is another one of those segments where there are excessive number of comments, however the writing is actually fairly descriptive of the process. Today the commas are a distraction but the writing is pretty good here. It is not extremely technical nor does it get into many of the finer details of the inner workings of the lungs, but from the perspective of a person describing the breeding action of the lungs as observed from the movement of the chest this is pretty good.
Make no mistake at this point in time scientists had often studied the lungs of animals and sometimes even people in action without the obstruction of a skin or the chest cavity. Scientists almost two hundred years earlier had performed what would be considered today fairly brutal experiments on animals and dogs in particular to gain a working knowledge of the organs. Battle field physicians also received a great deal of experience in war time and this book series actually was first published during the time of the American Civil War.
- Various Uses of the Hand
Various uses of the hand. — with the hand we affirm or reject the proposition with more force than with the tongue. It is the first to greet, and the last to bid our friends goodbye. We use it to express our joy and pleasure, or to give vent to our fear and horror. In the hour of peril we employ it in powerful supplication to Him to whom we look for succor and help, and it adds force and power to the appeals of suffering, of sorrow and of woe. It bestows its loving caresses on the Downey cheek of the baby, invokes the blessings of Heaven, pleads for mercy, or hurls curses on our enemies. Indeed, we do not always seem to realize how many notes in the tune of human life a hand of man is made to play. Its beauties, it’s perfect at its ability, it varied endowments, and the different uses to which it is applied, are almost beyond our thoughts, and he was deprived of this useful member sustained a loss that none can estimate, nor the wealth of Croesus compensate.
The Croesus reference relates to a very rich king that lived around the 500 BC period in what is today modern day Turkey. The reference of course is one that indicates that some things when lost can not be made up for with money at any level. You can repair some injuries, you can even compensate for others such as a drug addiction by attending drug rehabs.
