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.

    184/250 (page 178)
    occasional emaciation, foetid breath, acne-like eruption and other signs of mal-nutrition, seem to point to depression of those nerves which are believed to preside over the nutritive functions. 357. This drug exercises a no less potent influence over the heart and arteries. It lessens vascular activity generally, and tranquilizes the circulation. In excited conditions of the brain this effect is well seen. The flushed face, the throbbing of the carotids and temporals, the suffusion of the eyes, the feeling of fullness in the head, all disappear as if by magic under its use. So says Dr. W. A. Hammond, who finds the blood-vessels of the retina contracted, and cerebral anaemia produced from its action on the heart and vaso-motor nerves.* Similar effects are produced on the circulation generally as are witnessed in the arrest of the secretions, the cure of gonorrhoea and clap ;f the reduction of the pulse and temperature in fever, of which the journals contain abundant proof. 358. Is the influence here exerted on the vascular nerves one of excitation or depression .? Apart from other considerations, it will be readily conceded, that consistency of action reqiures that a drug which depresses or paralyzes the brain, the motor, sensory, and trophic nerves, should also similarly affect the vaso-motor system. But as we have just seen the arteries are contracted wndQr its use, and on the accepted vaso-motor theory, arterial contraction is due to vaso-motor excitation. Then, if that theory be correct, this drug, while depressing or paralyzing all other parts of the nervous system, excites the vascular nerves! We leave to the advocates of that theory the duty of explaining this anomaly. 359. The theory advocated in these pages presents no such diflieul- ty. The vaso-motor, as well as all other nerves, are functionally de- pressed, lessening their restraint over the muscular walls of the arteries, which proportionately contract by their own inherent power, and thus produce diminished vascular activity. From the foregoing considerations, the beneficial effects of this drug in excited, febrile and congested states of the brain or other organs, will be fully apparent, and need not be further dwelt upon. The relations of the bromides to epileptic and other convulsions, however, call for further remarks. 360. In previous pages, (§ 98) strong evidence has been produced to shew that the onset of the convulsive seizure depends essentially on anaemia of the brain. We have just now shewn that the bro- mides lessen vascularity, diminish blood supply, and so tend materially to produce an anaemic condition of that organ, and yet the bromides are among the favourite and successful remedies for the treatment of epilepsy. 361. But if the bromide of potassium produces cranial anaemia, and that is the,condition on which convulsions essentially depend, * Diseases of the Nerv. Syst., pp. 56, 65-6. fBraith. Relros., July, 1874, p. 191.