Mercers' company lectures on recent advances in the physiology of digestion : delivered in the Michaelmas term, 1905, in the Physiological Department of University College, London / By Ernest H. Starling.

  • Starling, Ernest Henry, 1866-1927.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mercers' company lectures on recent advances in the physiology of digestion : delivered in the Michaelmas term, 1905, in the Physiological Department of University College, London / By Ernest H. Starling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    by the contractions of the vohmtary muscles of the abdominal walls and pelvic floor. ^\e see, then, that the whole of the movements of the alimentary canal are completely adapted to effect the digestion and absorption of the food-stuffs. At the upper and lower ends of the canal, these movements are under the direct control of the central nervous system, since they have to be guided in accordance with the requirements of the animal's environment. In the middle parts of the gut, where the processes of digestion and absorption must go on without reference to the external conditions or activities of the animal, the movements are chiefly determined by local mechanisms. Even here„ however, they can be completely abolished, through the spinal cord and sympathetic system, in cases where injury of the abdominal cavity may render the local acti\aties dangerous for the animal. The complete paralysis of the gut, which has been observed in cases of gun-shot wound of the abdomen, is probably protective in function and determined by splanchnic stimulation. The motor activities of the alimentary canal present an ordered march of events as suited to the needs of the organism as are those which we have studied in dealing with the secre- tion of the digestive fluids. They differ from these in being more rapidly adaptable, and are therefore determined entirely by nervous mechanisms. So far as we know, chemical mechanisms play no part in the muscular activities of any part of the alimentary canal.