Local anæsthesia / by Arthur Schlesinger ; translated by F.S. Arnold.

  • Schlesinger, Arthur.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Local anæsthesia / by Arthur Schlesinger ; translated by F.S. Arnold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    endings, thus causing pain ([Quellungssclimerz), which is followed by a condition of anaesthesia ( Quellungsanasthesie, Braun). Injection of con- centrated solutions, in consequence of the abstrac- tion of water it brings about, also causes, though in a slightly different way, pain with subsequent anaesthesia. The anaesthesia, preceded by pain, which is caused by injections of water is named, after Liebreich, “ anaesthesia dolorosa.” It is not a suit- able method for producing local anaesthesia in actual practice, for the reason that the injection of substances markedly hypotonic to the tissue fluids, apart from the pain it produces, actually injures the tissues, as is proved by the frequent occurrence of necrosis after injections of water (Braun). If common salt is added to the water injected, it is found that both the pain and the subsequent anaesthesia diminish as the concentra- tion of the solution increases, and a point is finally reached at which the salt solution (0*9 per cent., or physiological ” salt solution) causes neither pain nor anaesthesia. The freezing-point of the tissue fluids is, at this point, the same as that of the salt solution. If we now carry the concentration of the salt solution further, the phenomena of pain and subsequent anaesthesia are again elicited. I hey are, however, to be ascribed now, not to the soaking of the tissues, but, on the contrary, to