Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

63/440 (page 47)

and in the circulation when the temperature of the body is raised. The increased pulsations o£ the heart, the enlarged calibre of all the arteries, and their greater fulness, the pulsation of small vessels in which no pulse was previously felt, the red and injected appearance of all visible parts, in a word, all those well-known phenomena of fluxion as they occur locally or generally after the operation of warmth, are the un- questionable consequences and proofs of the increase of blood- pressure in the arteries (and of the rapidity of the current). At the same time, in the numerous and multiform experi- ments of a bygone and recent date, and performed with a view of measuring the pressure, but little heed has been paid to this condition, and thus it comes to pass that with regard to the direct estimation of the arterial pressure, when the general temperature is raised, we have one solitary incidental communication made by Paschutin (50) when he was investi- gating the lymphatic system in dogs. He found, as a mat- ter of fact, that the pressure was considerably increased. In addition, J. Zadek (51), who performed experiments on men by Basch's method of indirectly measuring pressure, likewise found that the pressure in the arteries becomes ab- normally high when the bodily temperature is increased. These statements are, however, inadequate, and I have there- fore performed a great number of experiments on rabbits, in which the pressure in a carotid arteiy was measured while the surface of the body was somewhat rapidly warmed. The detailed account and a description of further experiments made at the same time do not belong to this part of the sub- ject and will follow hereafter. I may here just say that, as a matter of fact, when the temperature of the body is raised within certain limits, the pressure in the carotids is increased, and possibly to an extraordinary degree. If, how- ever, the temperature rises above a certain limit, the intense heat produces its well-known effect upon the heart, and the result is that the pressure falls rapidly and far below the normal degree, and death may ensue. It is therefore an established fact that, by applying heat to the body, the blood-pressure, and indeed the general arte- rial pressure in the whole body, can be increased. There is