A text-book of pharmacology, therapeutics and materia medica / by T. Lauder Brunton ; adapted to the United States Pharmacopoeia by Francis H. Williams.

  • Lauder Brunton
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of pharmacology, therapeutics and materia medica / by T. Lauder Brunton ; adapted to the United States Pharmacopoeia by Francis H. Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    96/1324 (page 40)
    membranes. The vascularity and rate of absorption from inter- cellular tissue is greater on the temples, breast, and inner side Pig. 6.—Diagram to illustrate the differences produced in the amount of a drug present in the organism by alterations in the rate of absorption and excretion. The lower funnel represents the organism. A represents the condition when a drug is rapidly introduced, as by injection into a yein. In this case tlie drug, e.g. curare, comes to be present in large quantities in the organism, and produces its full physiological effect. This is represented by the fulness of the lower funnel. And it does this notwithstanding the rapidity of excretion, which causes the drug to be quickly eliminated and to appear copiously in the urine, as represented by the fulness of the beaker into which the fluid flows from the lower funnel. B represents the con- dition when a drug is slowly absorbed and rapidly excreted, as when curare is given by the stomach. In this case the quantity present in the blood at any one time is very minute, as represented by the empty condition of the lower funnel. C represents the condition when absorption is rather quicker than excretion, as when a dose of morphine is given by the stomach. D represents the condition where absorption is moderate but excretion is interfered with, lead- ing to accumulation in the blood, as where an active drug is given by the mouth and the kidneys are much degenerated. of the arms and legs than on their outer surfaces, or on the back.* It should not be forgotten that any drug introduced into the stomach, but not absorbed into the blood, is as much outside the body as if it were in the hand, for any effect it will have on Pig. 7.—Diagrammatic representation of the body. A is a box to represent the tissues. B is an inner tube to represent the intestinal canal. It is obvious that anything which is merely in the inner tube is outside the box, and, similarly, anything which is merely in the intestinal canal is outside the body. the system, provided always it have no local action on the gastric walls. But if it act directly on the walls of the stomach, it may have an effect which it would not have when held in the hand ' Eulenburg, Hy])6derinatisclie Injection clcr Arzncimittel, 3rcl edit. p. 65.