The Workings of Capillary Glands and Membranes

Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK]. Section XXVI: Of the Capillary Glands and Membranes

SECTION 26. OF THE CAPILLARY GLANDS AND MEMBRANES

I. 1. The capillary-vessels are like all the other glands except the absorbent system, inasmuch as they receive blood from the arteries, separate a fluid from it, and return the remainder by the veins.

2. This series of glands is of the most extensive use, as their excretory ducts open on the whole external skin forming its perspirative pores, and on the internal surfaces of every cavity of the body. Their secretion on the skin is termed insensible perspiration, which in health is in part reabsorbed by the mouths of the lymphatics, and in part evaporated in the air; the secretion on the membranes, which line the larger cavities of the body, which have external openings, as the mouth and intestinal canal, is termed mucus, but is not however coagulable by heat; and the secretion on the membranes of those cavities of the body, which have no external openings, is called lymph or water, as in the cavities of the cellular membrane, and of the abdomen; this lymph however is coagulable by the heat of boiling water. Some mucus nearly as viscid as the white of egg, which was discharged by stool, did not coagulate, though I evaporated it to one fourth of the quantity, nor did the aqueous and vitreous humours of a sheep's eye coagulate by the like experiment: but the serosity from an anasarcous leg, and that from the abdomen of a dropsical person, and the crystalline humour of a sheep's eye, coagulated in the same heat.

3. When any of these capillary glands are stimulated into greater irritative actions, than is natural, they secrete a more copious material; and as the mouths of the absorbent system, which open in their vicinity, are at the same time stimulated into greater action, the thinner and more saline part of the secreted fluid is taken up again; and the remainder is not only more copious but also more viscid than natural. This is more or less troublesome or noxious according to the importance of the functions of the part affected: on the skin and bronchiæ, where this secretion ought naturally to evaporate, it becomes so viscid as to adhere to the membrane; on the tongue it forms a pellicle, which can with difficulty be scraped off; produces the scurf on the heads of many people; and the mucus, which is spit up by others in coughing. On the nostrils and fauces, when the secretion of these capillary glands is increased, it is termed simple catarrh; when in the intestines, a mucous diarrhœa; and in the urethra, or vagina, it has the name of gonorrhœa, or fluor albus.

4. When these capillary glands become inflamed, a still more viscid or even cretaceous humour is produced upon the surfaces of the membranes, which is the cause or the effect of rheumatism, gout, leprosy, and of hard tumours of the legs, which are generally termed scorbutic; all which will be treated of hereafter.

II. 1. The whole surface of the body, with all its cavities and contents, are covered with membrane. It lines every vessel, forms every cell, and binds together all the muscular and perhaps the osseous fibres of the body; and is itself therefore probably a simpler substance than those fibres. And as the containing vessels of the body from the largest to the least are thus lined and connected with membranes, it follows that these membranes themselves consisted of unorganized materials.

For however small we may conceive the diameters of the minutest vessels of the body, which escape our eyes and glasses, yet these vessels must consist of coats or sides, which are made up of an unorganized material, and which are probably produced from a gluten, which hardens after its production, like the silk or web of caterpillars and spiders. Of this material consist the membranes, which line the shells of eggs, and the shell itself, both which are unorganized, and are formed from mucus, which hardens after it is formed, either by the absorption of its more fluid part, or by its uniting with some part of the atmosphere. Such is also the production of the shells of snails, and of shell-fish, and I suppose of the enamel of the teeth.

2. But though the membranes, that compose the sides of the most minute vessels, are in truth unorganized materials, yet the larger membranes, which are perceptible to the eye, seem to be composed of an intertexture of the mouths of the absorbent system, and of the excretory ducts of the capillaries, with their concomitant arteries, veins, and nerves: and from this construction it is evident, that these membranes must possess great irritability to peculiar stimuli, though they are incapable of any motions, that are visible to the naked eye: and daily experience shews us, that in their inflamed state they have the greatest sensibility to pain, as in the pleurisy and paronychia.

3. On all these membranes a mucilaginous or aqueous fluid is secreted, which moistens and lubricates their surfaces, as was explained in Section XXIII. 2. Some have doubted, whether this mucus is separated from the blood by an appropriated set of glands, or exudes through the membranes, or is an abrasion or destruction of the surface of the membrane itself, which is continually repaired on the other side of it, but the great analogy between the capillary vessels, and the other glands, countenances the former opinion; and evinces, that these capillaries are the glands, that secrete it; to which we must add, that the blood in passing these capillary vessels undergoes a change in its colour from florid to purple, and gives out a quantity of heat; from whence, as in other glands, we must conclude that something is secreted from it.

III. The seat of rheumatism is in the membranes, or upon them; but there are three very distinct diseases, which commonly are confounded under this name. First, when a membrane becomes affected with torpor, or inactivity of the vessels which compose it, pain and coldness succeed, as in the hemicrania, and other head-achs, which are generally termed nervous rheumatism; they exist whether the part be at rest or in motion, and are generally attended with other marks of debility.

Another rheumatism is said to exist, when inflammation and swelling, as well as pain, affect some of the membranes of the joints, as of the ancles, wrists, knees, elbows, and sometimes of the ribs. This is accompanied with fever, is analogous to pleurisy and other inflammations, and is termed the acute rheumatism.

A third disease is called chronic rheumatism, which is distinguished from that first mentioned, as in this the pain only affects the patient during the motion of the part, and from the second kind of rheumatism above described, as it is not attended with quick pulse or inflammation. It is generally believed to succeed the acute rheumatism of the same part, and that some coagulable lymph, or cretaceous, or calculous material, has been left on the membrane; which gives pain, when the muscles move over it, as some extraneous body would do, which was too insoluble to be absorbed. Hence there is an analogy between this chronic rheumatism and the diseases which produce gravel or gout-stones; and it may perhaps receive relief from the same remedies, such as aerated sal soda.

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Darwin, Erasmus, 2005. Zoonomia, Vol. Or, the Laws of Organic Life. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 2022 from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/15707/15707-h/15707-h.htm#sect_XXVI

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