The sympathetic nerve : its relations to disease / by C. V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sympathetic nerve : its relations to disease / by C. V. Chapin. 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.

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    which is exerted by the nerves, motor, sensory, or secretory', by which the part is supplied ; and that no other nerves of a solely trophic nature are needed. Thus he would attribute to all nerves a trophic function, in addition to those which we now look upon them as possessing. Vulpian (1) also adopts this view. In other ways, also, can the lesions observed on the section of sensory or mixed nerves be explained. When sensation is de- stroyed in a part, it is no longer under the immediate supervision, so to speak, of the nerve centres ; and what perhaps is more im- portant, the ehannel/or the production of reflex alterations in the vessels by which the circulation of the part is regulated, is al- most, if not wholly, lost; and lastly, numerous alterations of nutri- tion are affected by the severance of the vaso-motor nerves them- selves, causing permanent changes in the afflux of blood. Never- theless, there a]-e some authors at the present daj-, who do not adopt these explanations of the above experimental and clinical phenomena, but require the hypothesis of the trophic nerves. Because, they claim that these are partially transmitted in the sympathetic, and because the vaso-motor fibres of this nerve do reall}^ have a considerable influence on nutrition, this brief con- sideration of the question has been here inserted. TEMPERATURE. The heat of the bod}^ is due exclusively to the chemical changes which take place in its different tissues in the performance of their various functions. This heat which is constantly being generated, is constantlj' being lost. 1st. By radiation from the blood, as it passes through the capillaries of the skin and lungs. 2d. By the heat of evaporation which is consumed in the vaporization of the perspiration, and the moisture in the respiratory tract. 3d. A certain amount is lost in the excretions of the body. Of course the amount of heat produced is a very variable quantit}^, depend- ent, as it is, on the functional activity of the individual. So, too, is the loss a A^ariable quantity, both because of the changes in the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere, and in the amount of the cutaneous evaporation. Now by what agency are these fac- 1 Vulpian, L'appareil, vaso-moteur, T. ii.