The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum].
- Duncum, Barbara M.
- Date:
- 1947
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The development of inhalation anaesthesia : with special reference to the years 1846-1900... / [Barbara M. Duncum]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
598/664 page 578
![He suggested ' that in all cases of weak heart in man, a full dose of digitalis before the administration of chloroform, would greatly lessen the danger of cardiac collapse '. In connection with the effects of strychnine on the circulation Wood stated : ' Of all my experimental results, those which have been reached with strychnine have been the most surprising. The injection of strychnine into the jugular vein sometimes produced a gradual rise of the arterial pressure, but always caused an extraordinary and rapid increase in the rate and extent of the respiration. Thus I have seen the respiration, which had ceased for ten seconds, suddenly, under the influence of an injection of two-tenths of a grain of strychnine, become at once very large and full, and reach a rate of 130 a minute.' 1 Wood and Cerna, about 1892, made a separate study of the effects of strychnine and also of atropine and of cocaine upon respiration and reported as follows : ' The experiments which we have made prove that the three alkaloids, atropine, strychnine, and cocaine, are all respiratory stimulants, increasing the amount of air taken in and out of the lungs ; exerting action, apparently, by a direct influence upon the nerve-centres which preside over the respiratory movements. The question which of these alkaloids is the most powerful and reliable in practical medicine, can scarcely be answered positively by means of experimentation upon the lower animals. . . . [But] although the conclusions which we have reached have been based solely upon the results of experiments made upon dogs, we think they . . . apply to the man as well as to the dog. The difficulty with the use of massive doses of cocaine and strychnine in practical medicine is the danger that attends their action on other portions of the nervous centres than the respiratory tract, and atropine, though probably not the most certain and powerful, seems the safest drug of the three, when it has been determined to get to the fullest possible influence of the agent used. . . . We believe that the best results can be obtained in practical medicine, by the simultaneous use of two or more of the respiratory stimulants. Cocaine and strychnine have so much similarity of action upon the nerve-centres that the use of one will probably increase any danger that may have been incurred by the administration of the other. The relations of atropine to cocaine and strychnine, however, are different, and it would seem that by the consentaneous use of atropine and strychnine or of atropine and cocaine, may be obtained the advantages of 1 Trans, int. Congr. Med., 1891, I, 144, 147.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20457200_0606.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
