The sphygmometer, an instrument which exhibits to the eye the entire action of the arteries : the usefulness of this instrument in the study of all diseases, researches on the diseases of the heart, and on the means of discriminating them : a memoir, presented to the Institute of France / by Julius Hérisson ; translated from the French by Joseph G. Nancrede.

  • Hérisson, Jules.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sphygmometer, an instrument which exhibits to the eye the entire action of the arteries : the usefulness of this instrument in the study of all diseases, researches on the diseases of the heart, and on the means of discriminating them : a memoir, presented to the Institute of France / by Julius Hérisson ; translated from the French by Joseph G. Nancrede. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    CONCLUSION. Whenever the action of the heart becomes disturbed, and in exploring the pulse with the sphygmometer, we meet with none of the symptoms by which one or more of the organic lesions of that viscus are characterized, we may hope that the rhythmical aberration depends upon other causes than a lesion of its texture. We must then seek these causes in affections of 1hose organs with which this centre of the circulation sympa- thizes. The treatment that may be requisite, must depend upon the result of this investigation. I can say with truth, that many affections considered organic, with the aid of the ordinary means alone, have, when examined in the mode now propos- ed, been easily relieved by a rational medical treatment. I shall have occasion, in a work specially devoted to this subject, which I intend to publish, to prove, by a great num- ber of anatomical facts, that changes in those organs which are closely connected by sympathy with the heart, almost always accompany its own lesions ; a circumstance which satisfacto- rily explains the derangements of the circulation, and conse- quently the organic diseases of the viscus which is at its centre. The health of the system depends upon an equilibrium of the parts of which it is composed. When one organ languish- es, or when, from being over excited, its action is increased, it does not suffer alone, but all the organs whose functions it influences in any degree, sustain an injury more or less consi- derable. We have heard it repeated till we are wearied, that the pas- sions are the most common causes of affections of the heart; but who dare assert that certain conditions of this viscus are not themselves the most powerful agitators of the passions? Who can doubt that an overgrown heart predisposes to irrita- tions of the brain ? or even that the cases of monomania furi- osa erotomania, &c, which have terminated in death, after many years of continued suffering, have been coincident with organic lesions of the heart? Violent passions are therefore