Materia medica, pharmacy, pharmacology and therapeutics / by W. Hale White.

  • Hale-White, William, Sir, 1857-1949.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Materia medica, pharmacy, pharmacology and therapeutics / by W. Hale White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    7. Drugs acting on the bladder and urethra.— The only ones of any practical value are sedatives to the urinary tract. If the urine is decomposing, drugs preventing its decom- position fall under this head. Other sedatives are opium, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium, pareira, buchu, uva uvsi, couch grass, cissampelos, and hygropliila, which are direct sedatives to the vesical and urethral mucous membrane. If the urine is excessively acid, alkalies are urinary sedatives. Urinary sedatives are used very largely in cases of cystitis and urethritis, whatever the cause may be. Local astringent and antiseptic injections are also employed. Division VII.—Driig^s acling^ on the Bodily Heat. A. Antipyretics, or Drugs which decrease the Bodily Temperature.—There are few drugs which can markedly lower the temperature in health. Some, it is true, will cause the temperature to fall below normal if given to a healthy man in large enough doses to induce severe collapse. The word anti- pyretic is limited to those drugs which bring down the temperature when it is raised owing to disease. We know that the greatest amount of heat is pro- duced in the muscles, and tbat there is a special part of the corpus striatum presiding over this pro- duction ; that heat is lost mostly by radiation from the vessels of the skin and by the evaporation of sweat, and that these vessels and the sudoriparous glands are under the control of the central nervous system. Heat is also lost through the lungs. As the production and loss are in health so accurately adjusted, many observers believe that there is a part of the cerebrum whose function it is to maintain the balance between the production and the loss. Also all parts of this complex mechanism are supplied with blood-vessels, and must be affected by the quan- tity and composition of the blood supphed to them. It may also be that the part of the central nervous