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

  • Poole, Thomas W.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

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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    contvdiCtWQ power, which is dependent on some other power^' for its operation is an absurdity. A locomotive has not an inherent power of motion. Gunpowder has not an inherent power of explosion. The admission of an inherent contractile power, is tantamount to an admission of the ability to use that power. Our phy- siologists, then, have entirely mistaken the meaning of the term they freely use, or they admit, pro tanto, the claim we put forward for this tissue. 4. Besides, apart from nerve-force, the several agents referred to in this connection as assumed ''stimulants to muscular contractile power, have certainly been misnamed, and really exert an influence of an opposite kind. In regard to one of these, especially, and the principal one—electricity—we hope to show, by and by, to the satisfaction of the reader, that so far from being a stimulant or an *^excitant, it is truly a paralyzer oinervous tissue, and tends propor- tionately to release the power of the muscle, and so to favor its contraction. 5. In pursuing this subject further, it will be convenient to consider it under the following phases :— {a) Active (voluntary) contraction. ib) Passive contraction (or tone), (^) Irregular (involuntary) contraction, (spasm, &c.) {d) Relaxation or flaccidity, (syncope, &c.) • {e) Rigor mortis. 6. \d) Active (voluntary) contraction.—It seems desirable to remind the reader that motor nerve-force is not the only factor which has an important influence on muscular contraction. Sir C. Bell is the earliest authority for the statement that no voluntary action can be performed without the assistance of a guiding sensation'' This has been called the muscular sense. In the majority of cases, the guiding or controlling sensation is derived from the muscles themselves, oi whose condition we are rendered cognizant by the sensory nerves with whieh they are furnished.* In certain cases one of the special nerves may supply a defect of the muscular sense and vice versa. Thus, in complete anaesthesia of the lower extremities without loss of muscular power, the patient is as completely unable to walk, as if the motor nerves had been paralyzed, unless the defective sensorial guidance be replaced by some other ; and in similar affections of the upper extremities there is a like inability to raise a limb or to sustain a weight. But in such cases the deficiency of the muscular sense'' may be made good by the visual. Thus the patient who cannot feel either the contact of his foot with the ground, or the muscular effort he is making, can manage to stand if he look at his limbs ; and the woman who cannot feel the pressure of her child upon her arms, can yet sustain it as long as she keeps her eyes fixed upon it, but no longer—the *Dr. Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 722.