Historical steps of modern medicine : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held on December 2, 1871 / by Henry Day.

  • Day, Henry, 1814-1881.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Historical steps of modern medicine : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held on December 2, 1871 / by Henry Day. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    To turn to other discoveries by synthesis:—That, by division of the sympathetic nerve, we should be enabled to produce paralysis of blood vessels, and that, under the paralysis, so produced, we should witness suffusion of blood, rapid radiation of heat from the extended vascular service, exudation and other secondary symptoms, and in- deed all those primary effects of heat, pain, redness, and swelling-, which the ancients called inflammation,—these are amongst other striking results of modern experiment. That, by a division of the supply going to a secreting gland, there should be increased flow of secretion, and further, in re- lation to another system of nerves, (cerebro-spinal nerves,) that there should be, on their division, ulceration of the parts they supply, as in the case of the cornea, followed by cure of the ulceration, upon division of the sympathetic supply to the same part, is an equally great progress. That division of the sympathetic 'nervous supply of parts and organs should tend to the results I have named, establishes a synthesis as remarkable as it is practical; but, I think, it is eclipsed by the more recently discovered fact, that similar phenomena may be produced without division of the sympathetic, viz : by the im- pression made on the nervous organism by the vapours of the organic nitrites, especially the amyl-nitrite, the first of the series subjected to physiological study. Let me dwell here a moment in explanation. The organic nitrites, it has been shown, seem to act almost instan- taneously on the nervous system of organic life, reducing the power of that system, and reducing, as a further result, the tension of vessels; thus they cause relaxation of extreme vessels, and lead to almost instant suffusion of vascular surfaces, so that, after inhaling the nitrite of amyl, the face becomes suffused with the deepest crimson blush ; thus also they cause intense action of the heart, followed, if their administration be long continued, by paralysis of that organ, by syncope and death; thus also they excite secretion—that is to say, owing to the relaxation of vessels which they produce in the vascular system of the secreting organs, (for instance the kidneys,) they permit an excessive secretion to take place. Further, and still more singularly, the nitrites produce a series of phenomena identical with well known emotional states, and, in their extreme action, we even recognise the same condition that Ave perceive in extreme states of perverted emotion, such, emphati- cally, as we see in hysteria.