title: Digestion
Creators: name: Hicks, Algernon
Publisher: name: The University of Edinburgh
Year: 1826
Subjects: subject: Digestion
subject: Organs
subject: Physiologists
subject: Treatment
subject: Alimentary canal

description: Ap ciborum Concoctionem multa conferunt organa, quae, hane ad rem, miro fabrieata sunt artificio. Fatendum vero est, physiologos non adhuc ad plenam attigisse notitiam, de actionibus atque muneribus omnium partium, quae, in eo opere, versantur. Usque eo tamen hanc functionem aperuerunt legesque, secundum quas gubernatur, protulerunt, ut medici, in medendi ratione excogitanda, jam summam acceperint auxilium ab eorum laboribus; et, uti verisimile est, in venturum longe majorem opem inde adepturi sunt. Neminem igitur oportet, qui in curandis aegris versatur, ignorare, quid physiologi pro certo compererint de functione corporis tot casibus turbata, et quae turbata tot diris praebet originem malis. Pauca hoc de munere propositurus sum, minime quidem eo consilio ut aliquid novi proferam, aut alios doceam; sed, quum occasio me de aliqua re seribere jubeat, ut accuratiorem acquiram notitiam de munere, quod uniuscujusque medicinae incumbentis tantum cognoscere interest. Antequam alimenta ad corporis jacturam reparandam accommodantur, mutationem subeunt in pluribus organis, primo in ore, dein in ventrieulo, tum in duodeno; postea absorpta in glandulis mesentericis, atque postremo in sanguinem recepta et ad pulmones delata, penitus naturae corporis similia fiunt, atque idonea ut partem ejusdem constituant. In hoc autem tentamine, non in animo est ultra eas procedere mutationes, quae, in canali alimentario, sive, ut medici vulgo aiunt, in primis viis, fiunt. # ## ### ## # Many organs contribute to the digestion of food, designed with marvelous skill for this purpose. It must be admitted, however, that physiologists have not yet fully understood the actions and functions of all the parts involved in this process. Nonetheless, they have revealed this function and the laws by which it is governed to such an extent that physicians have received great assistance from their work in devising methods of treatment, and it is likely that even greater aid will be gained in the future. Therefore, no one involved in treating the sick should be unaware of what physiologists have discovered for certain regarding a bodily function disrupted in so many cases, which, when disturbed, gives rise to many dire ailments. I intend to present a few points on this function, not with the aim of presenting anything new or instructing others, but since the occasion requires me to write about something, to acquire a more accurate understanding of the function that is so essential for anyone engaging in medicine to know. Before food is adapted to restore the body’s loss, it undergoes changes in several organs: first in the mouth, then in the stomach, and subsequently in the duodenum; later absorbed in the mesenteric glands, and finally received into the blood and carried to the lungs, it becomes thoroughly similar to the body's nature, suitable to become part of it. However, in this attempt, it is not my intention to go beyond those changes that occur in the alimentary canal, or as physicians commonly call it, in the primary pathways.