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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    akin to those of traumatic neurasthenia, with the result that unwary practitioners often confused the effects of the bromide with those of the injury and continued to increase the dose. No wonder that the symptoms steadily grew worse. Cause and effect were inextricably confused, further bromide of potas¬ sium being administered to remove the very disorder the drug had produced. A case of litigation is actually on record in which a claim was based on the presence of inflammation of the cord and its membranes as proved by a cutaneous eruption, which eruption was in reality an acne induced by bromide of potassium ! 1 2 Strychnine. Strychnine has often been in¬ cautiously used in cases of post-operative shock associated with exhaustion of the vaso-motor centres and dilatation of the splanchnic area. Recent re¬ search, however, has proved that stimulants of any kind are useless for the purpose of arresting the fall of blood-pressure. In fact their administration further paralyses vaso-motor action, and lowers the pressure, being tantamount to flogging a tired horse to death. In other words, the symptoms of shock led to the administration of strychnine, the very thing best calculated to increase shock. “ 1 Medical Times, 1885, Vol. I., p. 437. 2 Cook and Briggs, John Hopkins Hospital Reports, 1903, p. 470.