The pharmacological action and therapeutic uses of the nitrites and allied compounds : including the Croonian lectures for 1893 / by Daniel John Leech ; ed. by R.B. Wild.

  • Leech, Daniel John.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pharmacological action and therapeutic uses of the nitrites and allied compounds : including the Croonian lectures for 1893 / by Daniel John Leech ; ed. by R.B. Wild. 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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    susceptible to the acfion of nitrites, but the dose required to produce fall in tension in the susceptible is very small. In Figs. 90—9G is seen the influence produced in a veiy susceptible man by half a grain of nitrite of sodium. The duration of the action of a drug is doubtless in part dependent on the rapidity with which it is absorbed from the stomach, and it seemed to me possible that a more prolonged effect on tension might be obtained by a sub- stance ]ess soluble than the alkaline nitrites. I, therefore, tried the effect of cobalt yellow, a double nitrite of cobalt and potassium. I found it somewhat irregular in its action; in some individuals, three or four grains produced very little fall in pressure, but in others, as seen in Figs. 97—103, the influence was considerable, four grains lower- ing the tension greatly for three hours and ten minutes. Seven grains, in one case (Figs. 104—110) affected the tension for six hours; but, generally, the duration of its action was not more considerable than that of the nitrites; the effects appear, however, later, twenty to thirty minutes usually elapsing before the tension is much lowered. In estimating the duration of the effects of tensor- depressants, the oscillations which occur, both during the rise and fall of blood-pressure, cause considerable trouble. It is difficult to fix the exact time at which the tension becomes permanently normal, as well as the time at which it reaches its lowest point. The influence of the nitrites, indeed, seems, to a certain extent, wave-like. When the tension is falling rapidly, oscillations can hardly be detected; but, both when it is low and when it is rising, they are often very conspicuous.^ I have only looked on the return to normal as complete when the tracing has indicated the same tension as before the drug was given on several consecutive trials. I do not pretend, as I have said, that the observations I have made ^ Van der Heide (Arch, fur exp. Path, und Pharm,^ xix., p. 139) has noted in animals similar oscillations during the return of the blood-pressure to the normal, after it has been affected by digitalis.
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