Epilepsy and other affections of the nervous system which are marked by tremor, convulsion, or spasm : their pathology and treatment / by Charles Bland Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epilepsy and other affections of the nervous system which are marked by tremor, convulsion, or spasm : their pathology and treatment / by Charles Bland Radcliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    30/190 (page 22)
    The air is said to excite contraction in the muscles of the air-passages, but in reality the air is drawn into the chest and kept there until it has lost a great portion of its stimulant properties. It seems to stimulate expansion if it stimulates anything; and all the more seeing that these tubes, and the entire chest, remain contracted until the moment of birth. It may be objected, however, that the lungs are filled or emptied in consequence of the move- ments in the walls of the chest, and that the seeming dilatation of the air-passages is due to the entrance of the atmosphere into the vacuum caused by the descent of the diaphragm and by the raising of the ribs; but the answer to this objection is that the air-passages will not fill with irrespirable air—with air that is not stimulant. It may be objected that the air-passages contract in consequence of the stimulus of carbonic acid, but it is not easy to ad- mit this gas into any category of stimulants. The fact, however, that the air-passages remain quietly and con- tinuously contracted before birth is the main reason for supposing that that contraction is not dependent upon any active property in the air. Little is known with regard to the influence of other chemical or medical agents upon muscular contraction, and that little is very fragmentary. With regard, how- ever, to the two principal agents belonging to this class— opium and strychnia—there is no reason whatever for supposing them to act as stimuli. How strychnia acts will be seen hereafter, when speaking of tetanus. On the other hand, chloroform, ether, alcohol, and some other agents which arc manifestly stimulant.