A practical treatise on apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage) : its pathology, diagnosis, therapeutics, and prophylaxis ; with an essay on (so-called) nervous apoplexy, on congestion of the brain and serous effusion / by William Boyd Mushet.

  • Mushet, William Boyd.
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage) : its pathology, diagnosis, therapeutics, and prophylaxis ; with an essay on (so-called) nervous apoplexy, on congestion of the brain and serous effusion / by William Boyd Mushet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    ment, cerebral embolism, or other species of coma, the duration of which is usually transient, independently of treatment. As to the utility of blood-letting in reference to the ruptured cerebral vessels, much disagreement exists amongst practical men, in the main representing their favourite theories. Drs. Clutterbuck and Burrows may be selected as partisans of extreme physiological schools. The former believed that blood-letting does not diminish the quantity of blood in the brain, but reduces the velocity and impetus of the cerebral circu- lation by influencing the general system. He thought that the circulation in the brain is in great measure independent of the heart. He recommended moderate blood-letting to reduce arterial action, but not without discrimination of cases. Dr. Burrows, on the con- trary, alleges that even in hemorrhage the coma depends in most instances on vascular congestion, and that the quantity of blood within the cranium is ex- tremely variable at different times and under different circumstances. He is, in consequence, more sanguine as to the propriety and beneficial operation of vene- section. It is curious that Dr. Abercrombie, though his views accorded rather with those of Dr. Clutter- bucVthan of Dr. Burrows as to the cerebral circulation, adopted, almost without reservation, large and repeated blood-lettings in apoplexy and coma generaUy. He enjoins practitioners not to be deterred by a weak, languid, compressible pulse, or the general infirmity of the patient. Portal, on the same side, thought venesection not only the best remedy, but the best prophylactic (premier remMe preservatif); and Cruveil- hier regards early venesection as the most effectual