On the action of nitrite of amyl on the circulation / by T. Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the action of nitrite of amyl on the circulation / by T. 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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    ON THE CIRCULATION. By T. Lauder Brunton, M.D., D.Sc. The property of causing flushing of the face and throbbing of the carotids, which nitrite of amyl possesses, was first observed by Guthrie in 1859, but no further notice of it was taken till Dr. Richardson, in 1866, again drew attention to it. His experiments led him to conclude that it paralysed the nerves from the periphery to the centre, lessened the contractility of the muscles, and dilated the capillaries in the web of the frog. They were shortly afterwards repeated by Drs. Gamgee and Rutherford, who, however, found no action on the nerves, either sensory or motor, and rarely any on the capillaries of the frog. In some other experiments, also unpublished, but whose result they have kindly communicated to me, they found that the sphygmographic tracing of the radial pulse undergoes a remarkable change, the waves becoming much more frequent and their ascent, but especially descent, much more rapid ; and the pulse-rate and pressure in a manometer connected with the carotid of a rabbit fall, when the vapour of the nitrite is inhaled. Previous division of the depressor nerves did not affect the result. The diminished blood-pressure which it produces, led me to apply it in angina pectoris, and the good results I obtained made me anxious to investigate more closely the nature of its action. An excellent opportunity for doing so was afforded me by the kindness of Professor Ludwig, in whose laboratory at Leipzig the experiments, the result of which I am about to give, were carried on. With the exception of one or two on dogs, they were made upon rabbits; and instead of allowing the animals simply to inhale the vapour, artificial respiration was employed, the apparatus being so arranged that the air could be either sent direct from the bellows, through a tube in the trachea, to the lungs, or passed