Reply to a French review of essay LII : essay LVI / by William Sharp.

Date:
1889
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reply to a French review of essay LII : essay LVI / by William Sharp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    The point of view, therefore, may lawfully be changed. Bearing all this in mind we may now proceed. We are reminded by the Reviewer that, besides the increase and decrease of functions, there are also 'per- versions of functions and anatomical lesions—for, as there is no distinct line of separation between these, we may take them together—and of these it is asserted that they cannot have contraries. Indeed, more than one physician has declared that such contraries are “ impossible” and “ unthinkable.” Let me patiently show both their possibility and their thinkableness, which seem to me to be very plain. The difficulty experienced by my friends arises, I think, from a misconception of the subject. As the first step towards the removal of this miscon- ception it will be useful to revert to the disorders which consist in an augmentation or diminution of functions, and of these only. As an illustration of such disorders perhaps the simplest cases we can take are those dis- orders of the Heart, whose beats, in a given time, may be increased or diminished. A certain dose of Aconite, taken when the heart is beating healthily, will make it beat faster, and a certain smaller dose will make it beat slower. Now, let it be observed that these quicker and slower movements of the heart are the visible effects of the action of the doses of Aconite ; they are not the action itself. Aconite reaches the heart by circulating in the blood, and acts within that organ; how it acts there we do not know. What we do know are the visible effects of the action—we see that the effect of the larger dose is a quicker beating of the heart, and that the effect of the smaller dose is a slower beating. We see that these effects are contrary ones, and we conclude that the actions which produced them have been in contrary directions. I think this conclusion is incontrovertible. Need it be added that, as the quicker and slower beats of the heart are the visible opposite effects of invisible opposite actions, so the increase and decrease of secre- tions, the contraction and relaxation of muscles, and all other similar opposites, are in like manner visible oppo- site or contrary effects of invisible opposite or contrary actions ? The experiments relative to those effects of drug-action which consist in increase or diminution of functions, and