Anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the supra-renal capsules / by J. Thompson Darby ... ; presented as a thesis for graduation at the University of Pennsylvania ... April 19, 1858.

  • Darby, John T. (John Thomson), 1836-1879.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the supra-renal capsules / by J. Thompson Darby ... ; presented as a thesis for graduation at the University of Pennsylvania ... April 19, 1858. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The .ablation of both capsules causes death sooner than one, and adult animals die sooner than those very young. The removal of one does not always kill, as found by Sequard, though the proportion is small, 2 surviving out of 37. Phillipeaux asserts that death does not take place in the albino rat, when both capsules are removed. Gratiolet from experiments on young animals, found the mean duration of life longer than Sequard. The duration of life in experi- ments of my own, coincides with Sequard, but in young ani- mals the period of survival is longer, extending, as I have seen in a kitten, to 36 hours, and in a guinea pig over 31.* Gratiolet thinks death takes place from severity of the ope- rations, not from the influence exerted on the organism by these organs. To prove whether ablation, or the operation caused these symptoms enumerated, and the speedy death, the following experiments were performed. Similar incisions were made upon a guinea pig, rabbit and dog, as are made for extracting both capsules ; my thumb and fore-finger were then introduced into the wound, and brought in proximity to the organs. In no one of the three cases were symptoms produced as when these bodies are removed, but the appetite was good ; the sensibility only increased in those parts contiguous to the wound ; the tem- perature remained normal, etc. The dog on the eighth day had sufficiently recovered to get away ; the pig died on the 13th day, and, as a post-mor- tem revealed, from lesion of one of the lobes of the liver ;t and the rabbit, after becoming perfectly tame from my feed- ing him every morning for 21 days, died from the effects of a cold night. Brown Sequard's experiments, together with these, have proved to my own mind, that peritonitis, lesions of organs, phlebitis or hemorrhage, are not the cause of the rapid death seen in animals from whom these organs have been ablated. •In my own experiments, death followed sooner the removal of the right than the left capsule. t The liver is beautifully dhided into 5 lobes in this animal, one of which only was affected.