Clinical observations on functional nervous disorders / by C. Handfield Jones.

  • Charles Handfield Jones
Date:
1868
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical observations on functional nervous disorders / by C. Handfield Jones. 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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    local circulation. They demonstrate, certainly, the partial inde- pendence of the sympathetic system. Bernard remarks that though he has watched for a length of time animals who had undergone division of the cervical sympathetic, he has never seen any oedema or inflammatory action supervene in the abnormally hot parts so long as the animals continued in good health; but if they fell sick, either spontaneously or from the eifects of other operations, the mucous membranes of the eye and nose on the operated side only became very ]?ed, swelled, and poured out purulent matter abund- antly. If the animal's health improved, these inflammatory phe- nomena ceased. This highly important observation I can quite confirm from my own experience. A cat on which I operated had severe purulent ophthalmia of the left eye for five or six days ; after which it spontaneously declined. Sixteen days after the operation, the left ear was 15° F. hotter than the right. She had been de- bilitated by an unsuccessful attempt to divide the renal nerves on one side. The cause of the elevated temperature of the parts lying in the range of the divided sympathetic is attributed by Brown-S^quard and Waller to the increased afllux of blood to the local hypersemia. Bernard, however, opposes this view, because the temperature does not vary when the hypersemia declines ; because hyperaemia occurs when the fifth nerve is divided, but is attended with diminished temperature; and because ligature of the veins of each ear, and consequent gorging of the vessels with blood, lowers the temperature of the parts, which again rises on the side on which the sympathetic is subsequently divided. It is true, that if the carotid be tied, and the sympathetic afterwards divided on the same side, no calorification takes place ; but if the sympathetic be first divided, and calorification have come on, ligature of the carotid does not lower the temperature to that of the sound side. Another argument which may be used, in- support of Bernard's opinion, is that the temperature in the para- lyzed parts exceeds, in some cases, by 2° or 3° the normal temper- ature of internal parts, as the rectum. On the whole, it seems to me decidedly most probable that the increase of heat is not solely due to hyperaemic afiiux, but that accelerated tissue, change also plays a considerable part in its causation. It is a very important point, which is well illustrated by Brown-S^quard,* that the vital properties of the tissues in the range of the divided sympathetic are increased. He states that sensibility is augmented and persists longer ; the sense of hearing seems to be more acute ; the secretions of cerumen, tears, and perspiration are increased ; chloroform anaes- thesia occurs later in these parts than in others ; the first convulsions in strychnia poisoning take place there ; a galvanic current, too weak to act on the other side, produces contractions there ; after death, the muscles and the iris remain contractile longer than usual; the • Phys. of Central Nervous System, p. 141.