Digitalis : its mode of action, and its use : an enquiry illustrating the effect of remedial agents over diseased conditions of the heart : the Hastings prize essay of the British Medical Association for 1870 / by J. Milner Fothergill.

  • Fothergill, John Milner, 1841-1888.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Digitalis : its mode of action, and its use : an enquiry illustrating the effect of remedial agents over diseased conditions of the heart : the Hastings prize essay of the British Medical Association for 1870 / by J. Milner Fothergill. 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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    1G a primary action, and that, too, at an early period. There is no apparent connexion between the administration of digitalis and section of the vagi, except an increase in arterial tension, as tested by the haemadynamometer—the test used by Traube. Winogradoff, from a similar series of experiments to those of Traube, came to opposite con- clusions. Niemeyer states that he has clinically been compelled to emancipate himself from the bonds of Traube’s theory. 2. Theory of Stimulus to Cardiac Ganglia.—This theory was announced by Dybkowsky and Pellikan abroad, and supported by Handheld Jones, with Fuller and others in this country. This theory is, that digitalis acts as a stim- ulus to the cardiac ganglia, and thus produces the increas- ed muscular contraction. It is almost needless to remark here, that in no way could the stimulus to the nerve- ganglia manifest its results except in muscular energy— i.e., increased action of the muscular fibres under their control. The increased action and irregularity can as easily be conceived to result from a disturbance of balance through, over-action of the cardiac ganglia, as in paralysis of the opposing fibres of the vagus. That this irregularity does result, is unquestioned by either side. In order to settle the question of these opposing theories, Eulenberg and Ehrenhaus took out the heart of a frog, and dipped the lower end, or apex, into a solution of digitalin; the rhythmical action which goes on under the action of the cardiac ganglia, when the heart of a cold-blooded animal is cut out of the body, and when no longer any nei*ve- force is coming in from vagus or sympathetic fibres, and which contrasts with the tumultuous action which follows section of the vagi when the other nerves arc intact, was interfered with; if the solution were weak, the action was