An experimental research on the antagonism between the actions of physostigma and atropia / by Thomas R. Fraser.

  • Fraser Thomas R. (Thomas Richard), Sir, 1841-1920.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental research on the antagonism between the actions of physostigma and atropia / by Thomas R. Fraser. 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.

    6/200 (page 532)
    or stramonium was used as a physiological antidote; and, conversely, of poisoning with one or other of the latter substances, in which opium was used as an antidote. In presence of the numerous important fallacies that are inseparably connected with such evidence, it would be vain to expect that from it alone an absolute demonstration could be obtaijied of the existence of a general antagonism so perfect as to constitute any one active substance the physiological antidote of another. This evidence must, therefore, be regarded as unsatisfactory, more especially as several observers of recognised ability, as Dr John Harley and L. ORFiLA,t have pronounced it insufficient, after a careful examination of the record of each case. The general result of the investigations that have been made to decide this question by experiments on the lower animals, is also of an inconclusive character. No doubt, the experiments of Bois, | Camus, § Onsum, 1| and Brown-SequardU appear to show that the lethal action of opium cannot be pre- vented by the physiological influence of belladonna, liyoscyamus, or stramonium, nor that of the latter substances by opium; but these experiments are open to the objection, that the doses of the substances used as antidotes do not seem to have been sufficiently varied. At the same time, there can be little doubt that the evidence derived from both clinical observation and experimental research is sufficient to show that several of the actions of opium are of a contrary nature to those of belladonna, hyoscyamus, and stramonium. It is, however, equally undoubted that, in the meantime, this evidence is insufficient to prom the existence of a general anta- gonism ; or of one between actions of sufficient importance to constitute opium a physiological antidote to belladonna, hyoscyamus, or stramonium, or these latter substances physiological antidotes to opium. The question still remains an open one ; but such knowledge as is already possessed renders it pro- bable that a general antagonism does really exist, to the extent, at any rate, of the primary lethal action of opium or morphia being preventable by the physiological action of belladonna, hyoscyamus, or stramonium. A properly devised series of experiments would in all likelihood justify the opinion of those who, with no little courage, have practically affirmed their belief in the existence of this antagonism. * The Old Vegetable Neurotics, 1869. •\ Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales (Atroj)ine), tome vii. 1867, p. 215. \ Gazette desHopitaux, 1864. § Etude sur rantagonisme de ropium et de la belladonne. These de Paris, 1865. 11 Schmidt's Jahrbucher, 1865, Bd. 128, p. 288. IT Journal de la Physiologic del'homme et des animaux, tome 3^ 1860, p. 726. ** Interesting accounts of several of these contrary actions, founded on careful clinical observa- tion, have been published by Drs Mitchell, Keen, and Morehouse (see their paper On the Antagonism of Atropia and Morphia, in the American Jour, of the Med. Sciences, Vol. L. 1865, p. 67; and also by Dr Erlenmbtee (for an abstract of whose paper, see L'antagonisme de 1'opium et de la belladonne, by Dr Raynaud, Paris, 1866, p. 40).