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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    on the head had been sustained. He looked and felt well, had a fresh colour, the appetite was good and the bowels regular and he slept well. The urine was co])ious, had a specific gravity 1015, and contained neither albumen nor sugar. The pulse was tense but short, the first sound of the heart short, the aortic second accentuated. The condition of the circulation was thus that of virtual tension. A mild blue and colocyntli pill was ordered to be taken once a week and arsenic and nux vomica prescribed as a tonic. In March, while stooping after a heavy meal, he fell forwards and was unconscious for a few seconds, and this is the only attack he has since had. Other illustrations might be given, but I will only refer to one more, which I related in my address as president of the medical section of the Brighton meeting of the British Medical Association. The patient, aged thirty-seven, came under my observa- tion in November and December, 1885, suflering from headache and oppression, and was found to have an unusual degree of arterial tension ; shortly afterwards I was called to him, in consultation with Dr. Wilbe, when he was almost unconscious, overwhelmed ap- parently by a sense of pressure in the head and exhibiting violent synchronous contractions of the pectoral and abdominal muscles. The pressure in the arteries was extreme and the incompressibility of the pulse surpassed anything in my experience. The pa- tient was freely bled with good effect, but repeated free calomel purging was needed to bring down the tension and complete the recovery. There was an early stage of contracting kidney in this case, but no such change as to give rise to uraemia. The convulsions, whether unilateral or general, which sometimes occur months or years after an attack of hemiplegia, have in my experience always been associated with high tension and have often been T—27