Inaugural dissertation on the presence of air in the organs of circulation : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh, in conformity with the rules for graduation, by authority of the Very Rev. Principal Baird, and with the sanction of the Senatus Academicus / by John Rose Cormack.

Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inaugural dissertation on the presence of air in the organs of circulation : submitted to the Medical Faculty of the University of Edinburgh, in conformity with the rules for graduation, by authority of the Very Rev. Principal Baird, and with the sanction of the Senatus Academicus / by John Rose Cormack. 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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    gan to lick up his own blood. At the end of an hour he did not seem much out of sorts, and was then killed, the expe- riment being regarded as perfectly satisfactory. * That it really was so, I have not the slightest doubt. I have seen at least fifty or sixty dogs killed outright with Prussic acid—with doses often smaller, but seldom larger, than a drop of the real acid. Much of this slaughter was also witnessed, (about eighteen months ago,) at the police office of this city, by my friends Dr. J. Reid, Dr. J. Y. Simpson, and Mr. Skae, as well as by various others. Never did we there see such a recovery take place as that which I have now described, and it was only strong and powerful animals that survived the administration of the poison more than a very few minutes. Experiments similar to the above were made with Creo- sote, and the results were almost identical with those ob- served when Prussic acid was employed.*!* In conducting this investigation, it was found essential to the success of the operation that the blood should be very speedily and copiously abstracted; and this remark is equally applicable to the relief of the heart from air—that » * In the performance of this remarkable experiment, I had the assist- ance of my friends, Dr. Pollexfen, and Mr. William Scott. ■f There are cases of blows on the head, (as is stated by Dr. J. Reid, in the paper already quoted,) in which the contractions of the heart are not renewed by unloading its right side. It must be borne in mind, how- ever, that in this class of cases many anomalies present themselves, de- pending apparently, to a certain extent, upon the degree of shock sus- tained by the nervous system ; but it is to be explained more fully, I think, by reference to a fact which must strike every one who performs experiments upon animals,—that the persistence of the contractility of the heart in individuals belonging to the same species, (and killed in ex- actly the same way,) varies very much in duration.