Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on materia medica / by Carroll Dunham. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
377/436 (page 365)
![ligatured, and the animal then paralyzed by Conium, the limb thus protected is moved energetically, as in health. Neither can its action be on the brain, because in this case the poisoned blood passed as freely to the brain as to the cord ; nor was intelli- gence impaired. It must, then, affect the motor and the periphery sooner than the trunk of the nerve. The sensory nerves do not appear to be affected. Dr. John Harley, of London, has recently pub- lished a work containing provings upon the healthy subject, of Conium and some other drugs. He says: The first effect of Conium is a depression of the motor function; and its last is the complete obliteration of all muscular motion derived from the cerebro-spinal-motor tract. After taking qu] of the succus conii, I set out walking, and three-quarters of an hour after the dose I felt a heavy, clogging sensation in my heels, a distinct impairment of the motor power. I felt that the go was taken out of me. Vision was good for fixed objects, but accommodation was sluggish. Continued exertion removed these symp- toms. The mind was not affected. Dr. Harley sums up the action of Conium as follows: It exerts its power chiefly, if not exclu- sively, upon the motor centres within the cranium; and of these the corpora: striata are the parts chiefly affected. The sensory part of the nervous system is not affected. From this view of the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2105020x_0377.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
