The aid which experimentation on animals has given to the science and practice of medicine / by Sir Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
[between 1900 and 1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The aid which experimentation on animals has given to the science and practice of medicine / by Sir Lauder Brunton. 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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    the sense of impending dissolution is less marked or alto- gether absent. Brandy, ether, chloroform, ammonia, and other stimulants have hitherto been chiefly relied upon for the relief of angina pectoris; but the alleviation which they produce is but slight, and the duration of the attack is but little affected by them. In now publishing a statement of the results which I have obtained in the treatment of angina pectoris by nitrite of amyl, I have to observe that the cases in which I employed this remarkable substance belonged rather to the second than the first of the classes above described. Nitrite of amyl was discovered by Balard; and further investigated by Guthrie,* who noticed its property of causing* flushing in the face, throbbing of the carotids, and accele- ration of the heart’s action, and proposed it as a resuscitative in drowning, suffocation, and protracted fainting. Little attention, however, was paid to it for some years, till it was again taken up by Dr. B. W. Richardson, who found that it caused paralysis of the nerves from the peri- phery inwards, diminished the contractility of the muscles, and caused dilatation of the capillaries, as seen in the web of the frog’s foot. Dr. Arthur Gamgee, in an unpublished series of experi- ments, both with the sphygmograph and haBmadynamometer has found that it greatly lessens the arterial tension both in animals and man; ancl it was these experiments — some of which I was fortunate enough to witness—which led me to try it in angina pectoris. During the past winter there has been in the clinical wards one case in which the anginal pain was very severe, lasting* from an hour to an hour and a half, and recurring eveiy night, generally between 2 and 4 a.m.; besides several others in whom the affection, though present, was less frequent and less severe. Digitalis, aconite, and lobelia inflata were given in the intervals, without producing any benefit; and brandy and other diffusible stimulants during the fit produced little or no relief. When chloroform was given, so as to produce partial stupefaction, it relieved the pain for the time; but whenever the senses again became clear, the pain was as bad as before. Small bleedings, of three or four ounces, whether by cupping or venesection, were, however, always beneficial; the pain being completely absent for one night after the # 4 Journal of the Chemical Society/ 1S59.