Contributions to physiology & pathology / by Joseph Lister.

  • Joseph Lister
Date:
1859
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to physiology & pathology / by Joseph Lister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/106 page 608
    that part produced the same effect as irritation of the sympathetic, namely, pallor with diminished temperature*. M. Schiff afterwards ascertained, that after destruction of the lower part of the cervical and upper part of the dorsal region of the cord in Bats there is an immediate dilatation of the small vessels of the wings f, and Brown-Si2quaed had previously shown that after transverse section of the spinal cord in the lumbar region in Birds and Mammals, an increase of 1°, 2°, or 3° Fahr. took place in the temperature of the paralysed parts J. All these facts tend to the same conclusion, namely, that the spinal cord is the part of the nervous centres which presides over the blood-vessels, and that one important action at least which it induces in them is constriction of the circular coat of the arteries. But there still remains, I believe, some difference of opinion with regard to the interpretation of Bernard’s experiment; and there might he some colour for the idea that the red and turgid state of the vessels seen after division of the sympathetic in the neck was due to a change in the blood, such as occurs in inflamma- tion, and that the pallor ensuing upon galvanizing the nerve was the result of a return of the vital fluid to its normal condition after restoration of nervous influence. But all ambiguity of this kind seems to me to be removed by some observations made several years ago by Mr. Wharton Jones upon the Frog. This animal is peculiarly adapted for investigations on this subject, because both the calibre of the vessels and the state of the blood as it flows through them can be observed with the utmost facility in the web; and Mr. Jones found that division of the sciatic nerve was followed by dilatation of the arteries, but that this increase of calibre, so far from being caused by an obstruction in the progress of the blood, was accompanied with unusually free and rapid flow through the capillaries §. But with regard to the part of the nervous system which regulates the contractions of the arteries, some more recent observations by the same author are at variance with the conclusion above drawn from experiments by others upon Mammalia. For he states that the division of the roots of the sciatic nerve within the spinal canal failed to produce dilatation of the vessels; whence it was inferred that the sympathetic fibres of the sciatic trunk, as distinguished from those derived from the cord, are the channels through which the stimulus is transmitted to the arterial coats ||. Waller and Budge’s experiments, on the other hand, appear to show that it is from the cord that the sympathetic derives its controlling power over the arteries. This discrepancy upon a matter of such great importance in physiology appeared to me to demand further inquiry % and I propose in the present paper to communicate the results to which this investigation has led. * Comptes Bendus, vol. mi. pp. 377, 57S. t Gazette Hebdomadaire de Med. et de Chir. 1854, pp. 421, 424. J Experimental Besearehes, New York, 1853, p. 8. § Essay on the State of the Blood and the Blood-vesselsin Inflammation, by T. YYhaeton Jones, Esq., F.B.S. Guy’s Hospital Beports, vol. viii. p. 12. || Observations on the State of the Blood and the Blood-vessels in Inflammation, Med. and Chir. Trans, vol. xxxvi. ^ Since this paper was read, my attention has been called by Professor Goonaia to experiments recently
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