The pulse / by W.H. Broadbent ; illustrated with 59 ophygmographic tracings.

  • William Broadbent
Date:
[1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pulse / by W.H. Broadbent ; illustrated with 59 ophygmographic tracings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    this can scarcely be exaggerated. Years beforehand it can be foreseen that certain persons will at a given age be in danger of an attack of apoplexy or will suffer from dilatation or other disease of the heart. These events are simply the developments of the effects of unduly high pressure in the arterial system, and are foretold by the tense radials and tortuous tem- porals. It must not be at once concluded that everyone who presents these marks of high tension will neces- sarily be cut off prematurely by cerebral haemorrhage, or heart disease, or crippled by paralysis. There are individuals of so tough a fibre and of such vital tenacity that the teachings of average experience do not apply to them, and the heart and vessels do not suffer appreciably from over-strain, which would be destructive of more cheaply organised structures. Again, degeneration in the arteries and failing energy in the heart may proceed with such even steps that the heart does not rupture the vessels nor the vessels ruin the heart. More tha^n once I have seen patients in whom the tension was dangerously high, and in whom it seemed that something must give wa}^, outlive the dangers to which they were exposed from high blood-pressure in the arteries, and, after slow and gradual failure of mental and bodily vigour extending over many years, ultimately die of senile gangrene or thrombosis of cerebral vessels. Allow- ance, again, must be made for the effects of change of regime and mode of life adopted voluntarily, as when a man retires from business, or enforced by illness. How often does an attack of hemiplegia lead to a prolongation of life ] While, therefore, abnormally high arterial tension is a sufficient ground for apprehension, it is only one factor in the prognosis, and must serve as a starting- point for investigation.