First principles of medicine / By Archibald Billing.

  • Archibald Billing
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles of medicine / By Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sink so rapidly that the blood becomes viscid and the heart powerless, the direct indication is to stimulate it by wine, brandy, and tincture of opium, and relieve the load of circulation by venesection at the same time; but without going so far for example we may refer to a similar treatment being found necessary in some cases of inflammation of the lungs or bowels here, though such cases do not often occur and especially if proper active depletion has been resorted to in the beginning of the inflammation. Narcotics stop the conducting power of the nerves which I illustrate thus, the arm being laid across the back ofa chair, or a limb otherwise compressed in one place becomes what is called asleep, from pressure on the nerve, sensation and action are lost, or if not quite lost much diminished, and at the same time “ pins and needles” a pricking sensation is felt. Now different narcotics produce more or less of these effects, a minute quantity a fourth of a grain of extract of aconite dissolved in the mouth and swallowed, pro- duces the pricking sensation and loss of power of the muscle of the fauces so as to render speech and deglu- tition difficult, belladonna a similar effect, less pricking than sense of dryness, hyoscyamus also sense of dryness. The limb being asleep is from the pressure interrupting the conducting power of the nerve by pushing the medullary matter &c. out of a part of it, if the medul- lary matter is but slightly separated the nervous in- fluence is passed like the sparks of electricity, causing the pricking, but if the gap or space be too great there is no sensation transmitted at all; if the arm be rubbed - so as to press back the medullary matter, as it begins