An inquiry into the reasons why the horse rarely vomits / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the reasons why the horse rarely vomits / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    perative, on reflection that the horse is not susceptible of emesis by the introduction of any medicinal substance into the stomach, and that as our knowledge of the action of emetics in the dog proves, that when introduced into the veins or into the stomach their effects differ in degree and not in kind, there is strong ground for the belief that the horse is unsusceptible of the specific action of emetics, even when directly injected into its circulating system. In order to settle the question, I determined to appeal to experi- ment, and procured for the purpose a horse and a mule, both of sound constitution. I have injected into their jugular veins solutions of tartar emetic, in 5, 30, and 50 grain doses, but have never seen efforts to vomit; to avoid misunderstanding I may say, that I have never seen any such thing as the animals thus experimented on take a deep inspiration, fix the chest, and make sudden and forcible exertion with the abdominal muscles. Inasmuch, however, as I noticed some preter- natural phenomena of muscular action in two of the experiments, a detailed account of them is rendered necessary. Twenty minutes after injecting into the left jugular vein of a horse thirty grains of tartar emetic, dissolved in three ounces of water, the muscles generally became rigid; but there was no movement caused by any of them. It was static, not dynamic contraction. After this, I noticed a good deal of twitching of the muscles of the fore and hind limbs, and of those of the lower part of the neck; but the abdominal muscles acted evenly, though with more frequency than usual, as the respiration became a good deal accelerated. At the end of three hours the twitching had almost ceased, and had done so completely; and the animal had resumed eating in a little less than four hours.' Lest it shoiild be feared that I misconstrued the phenomena of muscular contraction, I may say that almost every five minutes, and sometimes oftener, I took notes of the state of the animal; and did not note such words as spasm or effort, but avoided the danger of erring in judgment by describing in periphrases all I saw. It is important to notice that in the same animal, on a subsequent day, I injected 30 grains of tartar emetic in II oz. of water, without producing any sensible effect whatever. I injected 50 grains of tartar emetic, dissolved in 1| oz. of tepid water, into the jugular of a mule, with the following result. Fourteen minutes after the injection, the animal did not present any change ; but, in a few minutes more, left off eating and stood still. In the ensuing thirty-seven minutes, the muscular system was several times subject to momentary rigidity, Avhich, with the exception of slight elevation and extension of the head, was unaccompanied by any movement. This muscular rigidity simulated the tetanic state, and contrasted strongly with the state of the muscles of the same animal while void- ing faeces and urine; in an hour and fourteen minutes the mule re- ^ A few minutes after I had injected the tartar emetic, the animal commenced purging, and continued doing so for an hour and a half. To determine whether this phenomenon was due to the tartar emetic or to the water, I injected three ounces of tepid water into the jugular vein of a mule—it had no effect; hut purging was occasioned in fourteen minutes by injecting into the same vein, after the lapse of an hour, six ounces of tepid water. In none of my subsequent ex- periments was this purging produced,—a fact which needs further experience for its explanation.