Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry.

  • Jamieson Boyd Hurry
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    described (cf. p. 17), where exhaustion of the vaso¬ motor centre leads to splanchnic dilatation, cerebral and cardiac anaemia, further exhaustion and death. Paralysis of Vaso-motor Centre. Death is sometimes due to inhibition or paralysis of the vaso¬ motor centres as a result of terror or other strong emotion. During health the activity of those centres is increased or diminished according as arterial pressure falls or rises. But strong emotion may paralyse the vaso-motor mechanism. The splanchnic sluice gates are opened, the blood-pressure falls, the cerebral vessels are emptied, with the result that the depression of the centres is accentuated, it may be, beyond recovery. The heart too may be involved in the Circle, and intensify the danger. For owing to the progressive accumulation of blood in the splanchnic area, an insufficient quantity may return to the heart to enable this organ to carry on the circulation. The defective coronary circulation still further weak¬ ens the myocardium, with the result that the heart may suddenly stop in diastole. This is probably the mechanism of death in various forms of shock, in the collapse often met with during acute disease, in