On the mutual relations between anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, and the practice of medicine : being the Gulstonian Lectures for 1842 / by Marshall Hall.
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the mutual relations between anatomy, physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, and the practice of medicine : being the Gulstonian Lectures for 1842 / by Marshall Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Then the importance of attending to the urinary secre- tion and excretion can only be duly appreciated by perusing the incomparable works of Dr. Prout and Dr. Bright. In the 2^reDentio7i of apoplexy and hemiplegia^ no point is more important, after the diet and the alvine evacuation, than the just secretion and excretion of the urine. In the gouty sub- ject this is especially essential. II. The Higher Vital Fmictions. In looking over that part of the arrangement which re- lates to the higher vital functions, we are at once struck with their importance, whilst we find it difiicult to apply other than general remedies to their disorders. Through the medium of these functions, however, our most important remedies act, and upon these organs the class of poisons exert their frightful power. On these two points, and especially the latter, I shall here make a few remarks. The Nervous and Vascular Systems ; Action of Poisons. Those authors who have treated this question have, I think, generally taken too limited a view of the subject. Dr. Addison and Mr. Moi’gan have advocated the theory of nervous agency, Mr. Blake that of vascular agency, too exclu- sively. Indeed, the two former eminent physiologists have ‘‘ assumed” it to be unphilosophical to admit of a two- fold operation of poisonous agents on the living body*.” Dr. Addison and Mr. Morgan observe (p. 60)— The conclusion at which we have arrived is simply this : that all poisonous agents produce their specific effects upon the brain (?) and general system through the sentient (?) extremi- ties of nerves, and through the sentient extremities of nerves only; and that, when introduced into the current of the cir- culation in any way, their effects may result from the impres- sion made upon the sensible structure of the blood-vessels, and not from their direct application to the brain itself.” ]\Ir. Morgan, in a subsequent most interesting Lecture on Tetanus,” observes (p. 28)— Tetanus is, by common consent, allowed to be a truly • An Essay on Poisonous Agents, ike. p. 59.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21955189_0082.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
