Stool

“ The normal stool is a mixture of— (a) Water; (b) undigested and indigestible remnants of food, as starch-granules, particles of meat, plant-cells and fibers, etc.; (c) digested foods, carried out before absorption could take place; (d) products of the digestive tract, as altered bile-pigments, mucus, etc.; (e) products of decomposition, as indol, skatol, fatty acids, and various gases; (f) epithelial cells shed from the wall of the intestinal canal; (g) harmless bacteria, which are always present in enormous numbers. ”

“ For Constipation.—Take a small dose of salts or hunyadi water so as to have one semi-solid stool daily. If necessary remove any feces that may even then be retained, by injections of soap suds or warm water containing oil. Discontinue injections as soon as a daily full stool can be had without it.
Habits.—Full-blooded people should not use upholstered chairs as the heat of the body relaxes the tissues of the rectum. A cane seated chair is best or an air cushion with a hollow center. It is best to rest in bed, if possible, after stool for the rest relieves the congestion and soreness. ”

“ Too tight external sphincter (rectum) muscle, stricture, tumors, etc. Bending of the womb on the bowel.
Defective Worm-like Bowel Movement.—Irregular habits of living head the list causing this defective action. Everyone should promptly attend to Nature's call. Some people wait until the desire for stool has all gone, and in that way the "habit" of the bowels is gradually lost. Everyone should go to stool at a certain regular time each day, and at any other time when Nature calls. ”

“ Sometimes the patient will be compelled to go out two or three times before breakfast, and he may in the later attempts to have a stool, pass lumpy or scybalous feces, covered with mucous, and often streaked with blood. ”

“ The bowels move very frequently, often with little or nothing to pass. There may be pain with each movement. The blood may disappear in a few days, but the mucus remains, often in large quantity in each stool. ”

“ But bein’ tuckered out, I sot down on a reliable-lookin’ stool, the high-headed woman takin’ another one by my side—there wuz a hull row of folks settin’ on ’em—when, all of a sudden, I d’no how it wuz done or why, but them stools all sunk right down to the floor bearin’ us with ’em onwillin’ly. ”

“ Joint-stools were then created; on three legs
Upborne they stood. Three legs upholding firm
A massy slab, in fashion square or round.
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat,
And sway'd the sceptre of his infant realms:
And such in ancient halls and mansions drear
May still be seen; ”

“ The desire for food is destroyed, and the child will take neither aliment nor medicine. The stools are changed from their natural appearances, being sometimes black, and smelling like putrid mud; and at other times they are curdled, with shreds of coagulable lymph floating in a dark green fluid. ”

“ As soon as one stone has passed through the duct into the intestine, immediate relief is experienced until another commences to pass, and the larger the concretion, the greater is the pain. If the stools be washed, the gall-stones may be seen floating on top of the water. ”

“ The Stools.—When the diarrhea is chronic in character, the character of the stools indicates the seat of the inflammation. When there is a great deal of undigested food found in them the upper part of the bowel is more affected; when the stools contain more mucus than food the lower bowel is the chief seat of the trouble. The frequency and fluidity of the stools impose a great strain upon the entire body, causing a progressive emaciation and anemia.
The treatment is similar to that instituted in acute attacks. The starvation régime cannot be carried out for a long period. ”

“ take a strict view of their excrements, and, from the colour, the odour, the taste, the consistence, the crudeness or maturity of digestion, form a judgment of their thoughts and designs; because men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at stool, which he found by frequent experiment; ”

“ The stools often have blood mixed with the fluid, very glassy, jelly-like mucus, more or less abundantly as in the cases of Moesasca, Moosbrugger,817 Kahane,818 Girard,821 Poledne,823 and Rippe.824 Nausea and vomiting are rarer symptoms.
Diagnosis as a rule can only be made by microscopical examination of the stools; together with the eggs, regular and beautifully formed Charcot-Leyden crystals occur. ”

“ The baby’s first stools are of tarlike consistency, with little or no odor. After a day or two the stools change to a light yellow in color, are soft in consistency, and have little or no odor. During the first week the bowels move two or three times a day. As the child grows older, one or two movements a day will be sufficient. ”

“ The work of the stomach is to digest the food, and so to provide nourishment to the body. Its relation to the body is the same as that of the steam engine to the Railway train. The gastric juice which is produced in the stomach helps the assimilation of nutritious elements in the food, the refuse being sent out by way of the intestines in the form of urine and fæces. On the left side of the abdominal cavity is the spleen, while to the right of the stomach is the liver, whose function is the purification of the blood and the secretion of the bile, which is so useful for digestion. ”

“ Indeed, there is no comparison between these two processes; we have only to consider what the stomach contains—phlegm, bile, pneuma, [innate] heat, and, indeed the whole substance of the stomach. And if one considers along with this the adjacent viscera like a lot of burning hearths around a great cauldron—to the right the liver, to the left the spleen, the heart above, and along with it the diaphragm (suspended and in a state of constant movement) , and the omentum sheltering them all—you may believe what an extraordinary alteration it is which occurs in the food taken into the stomach. ”

“ The process of digestion, as the food passes from one end of the tract to the other, is performed by the aid of the secretions of various glands, which open into the alimentary canal at different points in its course. The principal of these are the salivary glands, situated on the pharynx and oesophagus, and the liver, biliary or hepatic gland, connecting with the stomach. With these may be considered the anal and ink-glands, which, in certain genera, connect with the terminal portion of the rectum. ”

“ And it is not at all strange that they should, since there is so much pressure from within, so much pressure downward, and so much pressure from without—all through the requirements of fashion, indulgence, and ignorance. But the stomach, upper portion of the duodenum, and small intestine, cæcum, the ascending colon, and especially the transverse colon and sigmoid flexure, are susceptible to various forms of displacement, inhibiting the ready flow or passage of food stuffs, gases, and feces from one segment of the digestive apparatus to another, until the vent is reached. ”

“ In the Solid Viscera of the Thorax and Abdomen.—The liver is small, the gall-bladder distended with bile, and the heart and kidneys deprived of any surrounding fat. All the internal organs are shrivelled and bloodless.
3. In the Stomach and Intestines.—The stomach in some cases is quite healthy, but more or less stained with bile; in others it is found collapsed, contracted, empty, and the mucous membrane more or less ulcerated. The intestines are thin, contracted, empty, and so shrunken that the canal is almost obliterated. ”

“ We have, in succession, the mouth (M.) , separated from the nasal passage (Na.) above the palate; the pharynx (ph.) , where the right and left nasal passages open by the posterior nares into the mouth; the oesophagus (oes.) ; the bag-like stomach, its left (Section 6) end being called the cardiac (cd.st.) , and its right the pyloric end (py.) ; the U-shaped duodenum (ddnm.) and the very long and greatly coiled ileum (il.) . The duodenum and ileum together form the small intestine; and the ileum is dilated at its distal end into a thick-walled sacculus rotundus (s.r.) ”

“ Manner of Performance of Digestion.—The organs situated in what is called in medical language the abdomen, have in the child no other duty to perform than such as subserve the processes of digestion and nutrition. The saliva secreted by the appropriate glands in the mouth, mixing with the food, facilitates the further changes which take place in the stomach. In the stomach the food is acted on and dissolved by the gastric juice or pepsin, which is poured out by an almost infinity of minute tubes, or follicles as they are termed. ”

“ Four or five of these folds enter into the intestine, and here, for about a quarter of an inch, they become but very slightly elevated; as they approach that peculiar semiflexion in the intestine referred to above, they increase in number, and also in depth (Fig. 4) , and, from their very close and compact appearance, I am led to suspect that this portion of the intestine, between the pyloric orifice of the true stomach and the orifice of the biliary ducts, is more than an ordinary duodenum, and acts somewhat as a secondary stomachal cavity. ”

“ At a short distance below the junction of this gland with the stomach, the intestine contracts, and twists upon itself. There is no true pyloric valve, but this turn in the intestine to all intents and purposes acts as one. The intestine next proceeds towards the liver. This organ is large, its upper surface concave, its lower convex; it is divided by the suspensory ligament, which attaches it to the walls of the abdomen, into two lobes; in the adult male it is of a dark brownish colour, mottled; it overlaps the stomach and portions of the small intestine. ”

“ The stomach forms the gastric juice.
9. The intestines are about twenty-five feet long. They form the intestinal juice.
10. The liver lies under the ribs of the right side. It is about half as large as the head. It makes bile.
11. When not needed for immediate use, the bile is stored up in a sac called the gall-bladder.
12. The pancreas is a gland which lies just back of the stomach. It makes pancreatic juice.
13. The spleen is found near the pancreas.
14. There are five important digestive organs—the mouth, the stomach, the intestines, the liver, and the pancreas. ”

“ Intestinal Digestion.—We sometimes eat butter with bread, or take some other form of fat in our food. This is not acted upon by the saliva or the gastric juice. When food passes out of the stomach into the small intestine, a large quantity of bile is at once poured upon it. This bile has been made beforehand by the liver and stored up in the gall-bladder. The bile helps to digest fats, which the saliva and the gastric juice cannot digest. ”

“ Intestinal Digestion.—The chemical changes which food undergoes in the small and large intestines are exceedingly complex. Digestion in the intestine is due to the combined action of the bile, pancreatic juice, and succus entericus. The material which enters the duodenum from the stomach is known as the chyme. The acid chyme provokes a flow of bile and pancreatic juice. It acts upon the prosecretin in the duodenal mucous membrane in such a manner that secretin, a hormone, is formed and carried by the blood to the cells of the pancreas which it stimulates. ”

“ Turn over the viscera, and compare with Sheet 11; one lung is often found greatly inflated, and then projects back into the body cavity; the stomach is, in some cases, pushed forward and hidden behind the shoulder girdle. Observe the allantoic bladder, the spleen, gall bladder, portal vein, and pancreas. By squeezing the gall bladder gently, the bile duct will be injected with bile, and will be apparent if the stomach is turned over. The oesophagus, just in front of the stomach, should be cut through, and the rectum, and the mesentery and alimentary canal supported by it, removed. ”

“ The stomach is, of course not the only organ of digestion: the liver, the pancreas and the intestinal glands, all are concerned. The recent work of Pawlow and of Starling has greatly advanced our knowledge of the actions of the secretions from these organs. The whole chain of processes, nervous and chemical, psychical and physical, from the taking of food into the mouth to the expulsion of the waste residue, is now viewed in its entirety ”

“ The second stomach, which is separated from the first, of which it appears to be merely a continuation, only by a very short tube, is cylindrical, and very muscular; it is the receptacle for the food, which is there digested, and conveyed by the small intestines to all parts of the body for its nutriment. ”

“ The stomach, while it retains its general tubular form increases considerably in length and assumes the shape and structure found in the human large intestine. It is partially subdivided by folds projecting into the interior and separating compartments resembling the colic cells of the human large intestine. The time required for the passage of food through the stomach is thus increased and the action of the gastric juice is prolonged and rendered more intense. ”

“ They are acted upon by the digestive juices in the stomach and small intestine, and are absorbed into the circulation. The liver, in its capacity of separator, objects to their introduction as harmful to the system and casts out with increased secretion of bile that portion which reaches it. ”

“ Most people understand that bile is necessary to digestion, and the gall-bladder is a receptacle for that bile. Where the digestive process is performed in a large stomach, and the food descends in larger quantities, and at long intervals, the gall bladder is necessary ”