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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    In spinal meningitis the pulse is small and tense; and in locomotor ataxy the arterioles are habitually contracted, and are specially tightened up during paroxysms of the lightning pains—perhaps as a reflex effect of the pain. In cervical pachymeningitis with compression of the cord the pulse becomes infrequent, and, according to Charcot, sudden death from arrest of the heart is not uncommon. Neuralgia is attended with contraction of the peripheral vessels; and it is not without interest to i-emark that many of the agents by which attacks are warded off or arrested are such as relax the arterioles. More important for the purposes of this book are the effects j^roduced on the brain and cord by abnormal conditions of the circulation, since, if these can be identified, it may often happen that the pulse will afford a clue to remedial measures. The nutrition of the brain, as of all parts of the body, is dependent upon the supply of an adequate amount of healthy blood ; but the functional activity and efficiency of the brain are even more dependent upon the blood-supply than its nutrition, and are influenced by it to an extraordinary degree; so that blood which would maintain the structural integrity of the brain might be altogether unfit to minister to its functions. The foetal brain, for example, grows and develops with the greatest rapidity when sup- plied only with placental blood, which is very imperfectly aerated. The presence of alcohol, or chloroform, or morphia in the blood, again, does not interfere with the nutrition of the nerve-centres, but it deranges their action; and it cannot be doubted that poisons generated in the system or retained excretory matters have a similar effect. The most striking illustrp^tion of disturbance of the cerebral functions by interference with the snj)p]y of blood is