Observations and experiments on the efficacy and modus operandi of cupping-glasses, in preventing and arresting the effects of poisoned wounds / by Caspar Wistar Pennock.

  • Pennock, C. W. (Caspar Wistar), 1799-1867.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations and experiments on the efficacy and modus operandi of cupping-glasses, in preventing and arresting the effects of poisoned wounds / by Caspar Wistar Pennock. 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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    and with irregular and difficult respiration. In twelve minutes, spasm came on, which was soon succeeded by opisthotonos, and life was destroyed in four minutes afterwards: sixteen after the insertion of the poison. Experiment 4th.—One grain of strychnine was introduced through the barrel of a quill to the distance of an inch between the muscles and skin of an adult rabbit. The small orifice through which the tube was introduced, was covered with a strip of adhesive plaster, and the cupping-glass immediately applied to the sound skin, over the spot at which the poison was deposited, leaving the wound without the bounds of the glass. No symptom appeared during the time of the appli- cation of the cup, which was fixed on the spot for more than an hour. Upon the removal of the glass, the poison was cut out, the part carefully washed, the wound closed with the interrupted suture, and the rabbit lived and did well. Experiment 5th.—One grain of strychnine was introduced into the thigh of a full grown rabbit, as in the preceding experiment, and the cupping-glass applied on the sound skin over the poison. No tetanic symptoms having been manifested at the expiration of one hour and eleven minutes, I removed the cup; and wishing to ascertain at what period after the removal of the cupping-glass, the poison would prove fatal, the rabbit was released from the board to which he had been bound, and placed at liberty on the floor. In sixteen minutes afterwards he was seized with violent tetanic symptoms, opistho- tonos supervened, and he died in two minutes afterwards. From this experiment it is evident that although the peculiar ef- fects of the poison are prevented during the application of the cup- ping-glass, yet the symptoms of poisoning recur immediately after its removal, and death results, as soon as if no such application had been used. This fact being of great practical importance, and being directly the reverse of a position laid down by Dr. Barry, I should have' stated it with great hesitation, had I not verified it by repeated experiments, in the performance of which I was kindly assisted by my friends, Dr. Comstock, and Messrs. George Spackman and H. Levret, students of medicine. I am therefore decidedly of the opinion, that the cupping-glasses do not so affect the texture of the parts to which they are applied, as to induce any functional alteration in the poisoned surface, which will in any degree arrest the effects of the poison after their removal. Experiment 6th.—Two very small and feeble rabbits were the sub-