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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    9. Now it may be claimed on our part that the motor nerve im^ pulse or molecular change, which originates the voluntary contraction of muscle, may as readily be one which relieves the muscle from previous restraint, as one which supplies a stimulus to the muscle to contract. For, as just shewn, this impulse and the desired result are all that the will really has to do with the matter ; the motor- ganglia, guided by the muscular sense directing the impulse to the proper muscle, the contraction of which does the rest. 10. The force or moderation with which voluntary muscular con- traction may be made to display itself, as in striking a gentle or a heavy blow, does not in the least embarrass this view of the case. For where a powerful impulse is directed by the will to ensure a, heavy blow, as the result of the mental act, the release of a greater number of fasciculi .of a muscle, (than for a lighter blow), and the simultaneous caUing into play of a greater number of muscles^ and doing so with greater suddenness, fully accounts for the increased result produced. Indeed this is the very explanation authoritatively given for the apparently increased strength ot muscular power dis- played by maniacs, or by persons laboring under great mental excitement, which in these cases is not attributed to increased nerve-force stimulating muscular contraction. Besides, it is distinctly avowed that there is no evidence that muscular irritability [that is, its power of contracting under an assumed stimulus] can be: increased by any cause operating through the nervous system.* Furthermore, modern research shows that in the cases refened to, the appearance of increased strength is delusive ; and that the- condition of the nervous centres is one of weakened rather than of mcreased power. Thus Dr. Anstie bears witness to the incredible violence and muscular strength of many patients who are sinking, into a state of general paralysis of the insane, and who are best treated by food and stimulants.-f* 11. It has been stated by Dr. Carpenter, (in apparent antagonism* to the last quotation from his Physiology), that stimulating agents,, as the moderate use of alcohol, nitrous oxide, opium, &c., which temporarily increase muscular power, do so hy primarily exciting the nervous system^X The action of these agents will be discussed elsewhere. It may suffice to remark here, that granting all that is here stated—that alcohol in moderate doses excites the nervous system in healthy states—that excitation may serve simply like the mental or maniacal excitement just mentioned, to call into play a greater number of muscles, or to do so more promptly tha;n in ordinary states ; and like these conditions also, it is followed by a period of depression. The so-called food action of alcohol, especially in exhausting diseases, where great disintegration of tissue is going on, is of a *Dr. Carpenter's Hum. Physiology, p. 322. tStim. and Narcot., pp. 133-4' JPysiol. p. 322.