Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe. 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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    The artery was divided when the fit was at its height, and the blood escaped by jets in the usual way, but not of the usual colour. Instead of beino[- red, the blood was black: instead of being arterial, that is to say, it was venous. The state during the convulsion was evi- dently that of suffocation ; and, on this account, black, unaerated blood had found its way into the arteries, and was being driven through them at the time. The case was intelligible enough as regards the suffocation, for in this state the simple fact is, that black blood does for a time penetrate into and pass along the arteries ; but it was not intelligible as regards convulsion, if convulsion were, as it is assumed to be, a sign of exalted vital action. I could connect such exaltation with increased supply of red blood to certain nerve-centres, but not with the utterly contrary state of things involved in the actual circulation of black blood ; and, do what I would, I could see no other conclusion than that which had been already forced upon me by the history of the poisoned rabbit, namely this, that the convulsion pointed to a state of things which had to do with death rather than with life,—that, in short, this state of muscu- lar contraction was due, not to the black blood having acted as a stimulus, but to the withdrawal of an in- hibitory influence which had served to keep up the state of muscular relaxation as long as certain nerve- centres were duly supplied with red blood. And so likewise v/ith the second of the two facts to which I have alluded. I had the good fortune to be present on one occasion when Matteucci was watching the action of strychnia upon the common electric ray of the Mediterranean. I saw very plainly that this action was marked by involuntary electric shocks as well as by involuntary spasms, and I was much struck by B 2