A handbook of legal medicine intended for the use of the legal profession / by William Sellers.

Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A handbook of legal medicine intended for the use of the legal profession / by William Sellers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    xnonest and most dangerous results of wounds and other injuries. It is caused by the rupture of a blood-vessel and may therefore he capillary, venous or arterial. Capillary bleeding occurs after a graze or scratch and is usually, as might he expected, slight in amount. Yenous bleeding is more important and may be dangerous. It i^ recognised by the steady and non-jerky flow and by the dark-red or purple colour of the blood. Arterial bleeding is the most serious, as the blood is pumped out in jerks in great force, and unless it is soon checked, death may result. Organs of Respiration. We have described already how the blood is carried to the lungs by means of the pulmonary arteries, and now we consider the uses and func- tions of the lungs themselves. The lungs play a double part in the vital economy as they not only eliminate waste products such as carbonic acid, water, and organic matter, but also absorb into the system oxygen, without which life cannot continue. The lungs are two large spongy organs, which together with the heart fill the cavity of the chest. They rest on a large flat muscle called the diaphragm or midriff, which separates the cavity of the chest from that of the belly or abdomen. The trachea or windpipe is a flexible tube com- posed of gristle; it is continuous with the- back of the throat at the upper end and runs down the front of the neck to the top of the breast-bone, where it divides into the two bronchi, one for each c