Physiological therapeutics : a new theory / by Thomas W. Poole.

  • Poole, Thomas W.
Date:
1879
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiological therapeutics : a new theory / by Thomas W. Poole. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    is not the mode of action of belladonna, which, as we have seen, arrests secretion generally, throughout the body. 334. It is no slight advantage to a theory which professes to in- terpret the action of drugs, that it does so by attributing to them an uniform and consistent action, and does not require alternate or even simultaneous excitation and paralysis of nervous tissue by the same dose to account for the phenomena. Contrast the results of the theory here suggested in this respect with such announcements as the following :— Belladonna paralyzes the peripheral branches of the vagus, and at the same time stimulates the nervous centres of respiration ;* these centres being the very root or origin of the vagi themselyes. Dr. J. Harley attributes to this drug similarly antagonistic action.f In rebuttal of these views we have Dr. Anstie's authority that the process of narcotism is an uniform one, and tends entirely in the direction of nervous death, and that the idea of excitation of one portion of the nervous system going on simul- taneously with depression of another portion, is inconsistent with what any unprejudiced experimenter must observe.J 335. Of the action of belladonna on the iris enough has been sug- gested in the section in which the adaptation of our theory to the pupillary changes has been discussed. 336. The therapeutic uses of belladonna depend on the general action heretofore attributed to it. The extract, softened by warm water or glycerine, and freely applied to the mammary glands in threatened mastitis will materially aid in dispersing the engorge- ment of the vessels on which that state depends. The officinal lini- ment, locally applied, is said by Dr. Ringer to check excessive per- spiration ; and in painful conditions of the 5th pair, the same application, or moderate doses of the drug internally, will often prove beneficial. The constrictive power of belladonna over the calibre of blood-vessels is sometimes advantageously employed in aborting boils and other congestive states, as of the os uteri. Dr. Anstie regards this drug as especially adapted for painful states of the pelvic viscera. In irritable bladder, attended with too rapid ex- foliation of epithelium, simulating the presence of calculus ; and in nocturnal eneuresis from irritation of this viscus, belladonna or atro- pine, I-60th to I-80th of a grain, once or twice a day, frequently relieves. II As belladonna is, in great part, eliminated from the blood with the urinary secretion, its effects on the parts concerned in this function may be partly accounted for in this way. Belladonna has its admirers in the treatment of whooping cough, asthma, delirium of low fever, epilepsy, mania, erysipelas, &c. 337. A great deal has been written in reference to the special in- fluence of belladonna in scarlet fever. Dr. Richard Hughes, a lead- ing homoeopathist, and consequently an authority on that side of the *Dr. S. Ringer, Therapeutics, p. 477. tibid, p. 465, 6^c. jStim. and Narcot. p. 408. llBraith. Retros., July, 1869, p. 100.