Organ (anatomy)

“ The blood contains the materials of all the secretions, of the nutrition of all the organs, and of all the exhalations. Each gland draws from this common reservoir what is necessary to its secretion, as each organ does what is proper for its nutrition, and as each serous surface does what is suitable for its exhalation. Now it is by its organic sensibility that each living part of the body distinguishes what its functions require. ”

“ It is in the whole of the organ that these varieties of size take place in animal life; it is oftentimes in insulated parts only in organic life. The reason of this appears to me to be that the harmony of action is necessary, as I have demonstrated, for the animal functions; so that if one side of the brain is more developed than the other, if one eye, one ear, one pituitary membrane, &c. are more developed than their corresponding organs, the perception, the sight, the hearing, the smell, &c. would be inevitably deranged; whilst the secretion of bile, of urine, &c. ”

“ Let us not, however, exaggerate this independence of the textures of the organs in diseases, lest experience should contradict us. We shall see that the cellular system is oftentimes a medium of communication, not only from one texture to another in the same organ, but from one organ to a neighbouring one. ”

“ It may be imagined, from what has now been said, that the generative systems, considered under the relation of organs, forming a common and uniform base for all, ought to be sooner developed than others; and this, observation proves. While there is hardly an outline of the others81 in the first months of the fœtus, these predominate in a remarkable manner. The nerves, and their centre, which is the brain, the arteries, the veins and their central organ, which is the heart, the cellular texture, the exhalants and the absorbents, exhibit this phenomenon in a striking degree. ”

“ The internal cellular texture of each organ has but little of the vital character which distinguishes that organ; it preserves almost all its general properties; it is, in the structure of different parts, the medium which unites without resembling them. ”

“ Their number, at the first view, appears very considerable; for the organs within which they are reflected are numerous. [2] The stomach, bladder, urethra, uterus, ureters, the intestines, &c., borrow from these membranes a part of their structure: nevertheless, if it be considered, that they are continuous throughout, that everywhere they are observed to be extended from one organ to others, arising, as they did at first, from the skin, their number will appear to be singularly limited. ”

“ Having no dilatation or contraction, deprived of the fluid which acts incessantly upon the lungs, and which, loaded with different foreign substances, can often alter the vital forces of these organs, so as to interrupt the passage of the blood, &c. The liver, having a solid and granulated substance, in which no extraordinary motion can take place, except those of the general locomotion of the organ, is evidently incapable of frequently interrupting the course of the black blood, which the abdominal system sends there. ”

“ A peculiarity is presented in the veins which come from the stomach, spleen, pancreas, and intestines. After forming a large trunk, they enter the liver, and ramify like the arteries, and in this organ they again unite into a trunk, and enter the ascending vein, or cava, near the heart. This is called the portal circulation.
359. The ventricles of the heart contract, or the “pulse” beats, about seventy-five times every minute; in adults; in infants, more than a hundred times every minute; in old persons, less than seventy-five times every minute. ”

“ We easily see the reason of the quantity of blood that penetrates the heart, as this organ then very active in its motions, has need of much force, whilst the others, almost immoveable, require but little. ”

“ All modern surgeons admit the inutility of applications made in this way, and now confine them to the most sub-cutaneous organs. Perhaps hereafter we shall be sufficiently acquainted with the degree of vitality of each organ, to know when the cellular texture can be the means of communication of medicinal effects, between two contiguous organs, with different structure and properties, and when it is a barrier which stops the communication of these effects. At present we go almost always groping in the dark. ”

“ The STOMACH is situated in the left side of the abdomen, immediately below and in contact with the diaphragm. It has two openings; one connected with the œsophagus, called the car ́di-ac orifice; the other connected with the upper portion of the small intestine, called the py-lor ́ic orifice. It is composed of three coats, or membranes. The exterior or serous coat is very tough and strong, and invests every part of this important organ. The middle, or muscular coat is composed of two layers of muscular fibres, one set of which is arranged longitudinally, the other circularly. ”

“ However,100 the advantages of these applications have been much exaggerated, both when applied to the cutaneous and mucous surfaces, with a view of acting upon organs of different vitality, and which are subjacent to these surfaces. Practice too often proves that they may be excited, and irritated in a certain manner, without the contiguous organ being affected, because their life and that of the organ has no resemblance or correspondence, the one is indifferent to the affections of the other, though the parts are contiguous. ”

“ The sensibility of the mucous membranes, like that of the cutaneous organ, is essentially submissive to the immense influence of habit, which, tending incessantly to blunt the acuteness of the sensations of which they are the seat, reduces the pain and the pleasure that we receive through them equally to indifference, which is, as some say, the middle state. ”

“ Let us take an organ for example in each of the two lives. I have always seen that in a small brain the corpus callosum, the thalami nervorum opticorum, the corpora striata, &c. are in proportion to the whole size of the organ. ”

“ Their vital properties are altered with the greatest promptness, especially that which I have just pointed out; for the insensible contractility is rarely altered in them, because it does not perform an essential part. Observe in fact that the morbid derangements of an organ affect always the predominant vital force of that organ. ”

“ There is always between the stimulus and the organ something intermediate which receives the irritation; this intermediate organ is a delicate membrane and continuous with that of the arteries for the heart; it is a mucous surface for the gastric viscera and the bladder. This intermediate organ is more susceptible of receiving excitement than the muscle itself. I have uniformly observed that by37 irritating the internal surface of the heart, its contractions are greater, than by laying its texture bare externally by removing its serous covering and afterwards stimulating it. ”

“ He laid down the general morphological principle that the fundamental organs have essentially the shape of tubular cavities, as appears in the first form of the central organ of the nervous system, in the two muscular and osseous tubes which form the walls of the body, and in the intestinal canal; and he followed out with admirable clearness the steps by which from these fundamental systems the other organs arise secondarily, such as the organs of sense, the glands, lungs, heart, vascular glands, Wolffian bodies, kidneys and generative organs. ”

“ First, other congeries of glands occupy but a particular part of the system, or constitute a particular organ, as the liver, or kidneys; but those glands, which secrete the mucus, and perspirable matter, which are called capillaries, are of very great extent; they receive the blood from the arteries, separate from it the mucus, which lines every cell, and covers every cavity of body; and the perspirable matter, which softens and lubricates the whole surface of the skin, and the more extensive surface of the air-vessels, which compose the lungs. ”

“ The evolution of a special pumping organ, the heart, associated with the aeration of the body fluids in the gills, led to the perfection of the efficient system of circulation which is found, in the vertebrata.
The blood is to be regarded as alive in as strict a sense as any other- component of the living body. It is a tissue consisting of mobile elements—the blood corpuscles—and a plasma—a colloidal albuminous fluid which is analogous to the more solid intercellular material of other tissues. ”

“ The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, thereby causing the elastic pores of the corpora cavernosa to rapidly dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection in articulo mortis per diminutionem capitis.
So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that and the other. ”

“ The luminous organs appear to be specialized skin lands which secrete a fluid that becomes luminous on slow oxidation. The essential part of the organ remains a collection of gland cells, but in the more complex types there are blood vessels and nerves, a protecting membrane, an iris-like diaphragm, a reflector and lens. As the distribution and probably the colour of the light varies with the species, these organs may serve as recognition marks. ”

“ It is curious to notice how our body is wrapped in membrane. On the outside, is the skin protecting from exterior injury, and, on the inside, is the mucous membrane reaching from the lips to the innermost air cell of the lungs. Every organ is enveloped in its membrane. Every bone has its sheath. Every socket is lined. Even the separate fibers of muscles have their covering tissue. The brain and the spinal cord are triply wrapped, while the eye is only a membranous globe filled with fluid. ”

“ A little higher in the scale naturalists find a 'chylaqueous fluid,' which oscillates in the general cavity of the sack-like animal. The true blood is another step in development; and even this organized fluid changes its character as the scale advances. Most animals have no heart; [Pg 82] and when the organ does first appear, it is but a simple, rudimentary structure, very unlike the complex machine which plays at the centre of circulation in the higher types. ”

“ It is important to note, also, that an air-bladder and lungs have never been found in one and the same animal; and since arms, front-legs, flippers, and wings, are all regarded as modifications of the same organs, anterior limbs; and since, in many other cases, organs of very different size, form, complexity, and function, are considered as homologous, we shall be following precedent in admitting a willingness to regard air-bladders and lungs as modifications of the same organ. ”

“ The main systems of organs are, in order of importance, the nervous and muscular, the digestive, the circulatory, and the respiratory. Each organ or system of organs may have many forms. If any form of any organ could exist in combination with any form of all the others there would be an enormous number of combinations theoretically possible. But these combinations do not all exist in Nature, for organs are not merely assembled (rapprochés) , but act upon one another, and act all together for a common end. ”

“ The systems of animal life divide only into two kinds of organs, into those of sensation and those of motion, into the solar and planetary, or central and peripheric.
a. MOTOR ORGANS.
2369. Bone and muscle are not societies, but only poles of one system. There is therefore no mere bony organ, and no mere muscular organ. Meanwhile we will here regard them in particular or "per se."
1. Osseous Organs.
2370. The first bones were branchial arches or tracheal rings. When the lungs were developed from the branchiæ, the branchial arches were repeated as ribs or pulmonary arches. ”

“ The heart is not mentioned because it is the principal organ, neither are the diaphragm and the lung, because they serve the heart especially, but the rest of the body only incidentally, and were not originally so intended. The brain's task is to collect the different senses connected with it. The organs which are situated below the diaphragm have another secret, because they represent primary nature. ”

“ This is evidently the case in the human stomach. We still have the systems, or their unobliterated remains, of circular and longitudinal muscles; but we also see two new systems of fibres, both obviously geodetic (or rather, when we look more closely, both parts of one and the same geodetic system) , in the form of annuli encircling the pouch or diverticulum at the cardiac end of the stomach, and of oblique fibres taking a spiral course from the neighbourhood of the oesophagus over the sides of the organ.
In the heart we have a similar, but more complicated phenomenon. ”