The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland.

  • Headland, Frederick William.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    poured on a fire, first causes it to burn more freely, and then extinguishes it. Some local applications to the body cause smarting at the first but a sense of comfort afterwards. So it may be that the particles of Opium, when they first come in contact with the nervdus substance, may offend it, and cause some irritation on account of their foreign nature* but after the two reagents have had time to become more adapted the one to the other, the particles of the Opium may so fit amongst and cloak the ultimate particles of the nerves, that they more or less extinguish or suspend their natural vital sensibility. Considering the drug only in its secondary or more im- portant actions, it may be said that Opium is the most perfect nervous sedative that we possess. It controls the action of the heart, and diminishes the frequency of the respirations ; it benumbs the sensitive nerve, and paralyzes the muscular tis- sue. Bat these are common sedative actions, exerted still more rapidly and completely by such substances as Aconite and Prussic acid. Opium further paralyzes the organic nerves, putting an end more or less to the vital contractility of the intestinal walls, which depends on the sympathetic system. What is far more important, it has an action on the brain, of which the others are destitute. It destroys for a time its influence over the body, its power of co-ordinating emotions or receiving impressions. It suspends the action of the spe- cial senses. In a word, it causes sleep. Under the action of Opium the whole material nervous system without excep- tion is quieted and controlled. The immaterial part, the thinking mind itself, is the part that is the least interfered with. It may wander far in dreams, cut off from all know- ledge of the external world, and debarred from all intercourse with it—a disembodied spirit, that for a time has lost its hold of matter. The fact that the actions of Opium centre in the brain,— that, as far as regards the mind itself, they partake somewhat of a stimulating character,—and the fact of the invariable