A treatise on physiology applied to pathology / By F.J.V. Broussais ... Translated from the French, by John Bell ... and R. La Roche.
- François-Joseph-Victor Broussais
- Date:
- 1826
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on physiology applied to pathology / By F.J.V. Broussais ... Translated from the French, by John Bell ... and R. La Roche. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![ferent under these two circumstances ? Every one, I am convinced, will answer in the negative. Besides, what should we think of a moveable property? Is it thus with regard to contractility ? It never abandons the tissues endowed with it, unless they have lost their natural chemical composition. ‘It is very evident, there- fore, that sensibility is not a property were can be placed on apr rallé] with contractility. ” If sensibility, and even that too of which we are conscious, is not of that nature, we can view it only as a condition, manifesting it- self in a transient manner, ‘in the organised animal matter; and it can be demonstrated that this condition is itself subordinate to the — different states of contractility. Thus, organic contractility has been exalted in the punctured finger we have alluded to. If the brain be in à state of wakefulness, and in health, the nerves which establish the communication between the wound and that viscus, excite in it another increase of contractility, analogous to that pro- duced in the wounded finger, and pain is felt. It is not risking too much to assert, that the brain experiences an increase of organic action or contractility; experience proves this to be the fact; for if the pain be acute, the blood accumulates so abundantly in that viscus, that the face partakes of its congestion, and the excitement it experiences is spread very quickly to a number of nerves, pro- ducing similar changes in the structure and functions of the mobile tissues. Hence this influence will excite convulsions in the mus- cles—congestions of blood in the viscera and secretory organs—su- per-secretions—extravasations—hemorrhages, &c. &c.; phenomena depending essentially upon an acceleration in the contractility of the smaller vessels, or,'in other words, in an increase of organic contractility. To this it will perhaps be objected, that in those cases in which pain does not develope these phenomena, it is not productive of an organic excitement in the brain. In answer to this, however, it may be observed, that pain invariably produces this effect; for even in those instances in which the patient would possess sufficient command of himself to suppress. all complaints, and not execute the most limited muscular movements, his fea- tures would be altered, the colouration of his face would change; and assuredly these are external organic movements, the direct re- petition, not of those occurring in the wounded finger, since they do not follow whenever the nerves of the hand no longer commu- nicate with the brain, but of the organic movements excited by the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33092618_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
