On strychnia hypodermically administered in paralytic affections / by Charles Hunter.

  • Hunter, Charles, 1834 or 1835-1878.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On strychnia hypodermically administered in paralytic affections / by Charles Hunter. 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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    tonic influence of the puncture, as in case 7, and in a bricklayer now under treatment. Thus far, then, in favour of the hypodermic injection of this alkaloid. What, on the other hand, are the disadvantages of this method ? That great care is necessary lest too large a quantity should be injected of this agent, I need not point out: far better, therefore, always is it to inject a minimum than a maximum dose, say from the -f-Vth to the -gVth rather than from the -ji^th to the -^th. As a rule, however, the -nrth of a grain will suit most cases in which a tonic effect is desired upon a paralysed muscle or nerve. I think it as well to mention that in two out of about twenty-five patients in whom I have injected strychnia a carbuncular state of the nose, or rather a collection of small boils arose. It is ques- tionable to what extent, or whether or not, the strychnia injection is to be blamed. We know that belladonna will, at times, produce a rose-rash, and this is especially the case with atropia, its alkaloid, when injected. Both of the patients who had the boils produced about the nose, had had a good many injections; one was the sailor with the gun- shot wound in the spine whose case is mentioned above; and the other was an Indian ofl&cer who had for years suffered from neuralgia and muscular prostration, consequent on—according to Brown- Sequard— congestion of the spinal marrow.^' I have seen no ill results from the injection of strychnia such as have been described as following the injection of the acetate or sulphate of quinine. Those salts seem, in many cases, to have set up severe irritation, and subsequent sloughing of the cellular tissue, and even tetanus has been attributed in two cases to the injection of that alkaloid. Strychnia is, however, innocuous to the cellular tissue, and scarcely ever causes the least smarting, burning, or other local sign of irritation, when injected. Nor would quinine, as far as my experience goes, if some more basic salt than those above alluded to was used. j\ry^g.—^\^s the action of strychnia is chiefly manifested upon the muscular system^ whether taken in large or small doses, whether producing muscular jerkings and spasms or simply increase of power or tone, it may be asked, whether the result would not be more eflicacions still if the strychnia was injected into the muscular tissue itself rather than into the contiguous or superjacent cellular tissue ? My reply to this question, from having practically tried both methods, is— , 1. That I do not find any real advantage or any material diflerence of action when the muscles themselves are injected.^ ' There is, inorcnver, the disadvantage attending the injection of the uiusrlos