New views of the process of defecation, and their application to the pathology and treatment of diseases of the stomach, bowels, and other organs : together with an analytical correction of Sir Charles Bell's views respecting the nerves of the face / James O'Beirne.

Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: New views of the process of defecation, and their application to the pathology and treatment of diseases of the stomach, bowels, and other organs : together with an analytical correction of Sir Charles Bell's views respecting the nerves of the face / James O'Beirne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    a narrow ring, when an escape of flatus and fluid feces took place from its extremity, and gave great relief to the patient. In short, I had the great gratification of finding that the results of the expe- riment were precisely such as I had anticipated ; and that it was not only in my power to admi- nister the tobacco enema, so as to insure its full operation, but also to free the bowels at will. The woman recovered; and from this period may he dated my unexampled success in treating this hitherto most fatal and intractable disease. In the mean time, other diseases in which constipa- tion attended, and had resisted all other means, came before me in the course of practice, and suggested the necessity of trying the plan whicli had proved so eff'ectual in tetanus, with the ex- ception of throwing up such purgative fluids only as the peculiar circumstances of each case seemed to require. In almost every instance in which these trials were made, the plan was attended with the most decided and prompt success. At length, this occurred in such a variety of cases, that it could no longer be doubted that the prac- tice was one of general application, and depended upon some fixed, but unknown principle con- nected with the structure and function of the rectum. Anxious to discover the nature of this principle, I proceeded to make careful examina- tions of the coats of the rectum, and the manner in which they were supplied with nervous influ- ence. As miglit naturally be expected, its inter-