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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    ON STUYCHNIA HYPODERMICALLY ADMINISTERED IN PARALYTIC AFFECTIONS. By CHARLES HUNTER, LATB STJBGEON TO THE BOTAL PIMLICO DISPENSARY J VICE PRESIDENT WESTEEN MEDICAL SOCIETY ; MEMBER ROYAL MEDICAL AND CHIRUEGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. Reprinted from the ' British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review,' April, 1868. It is proposed in this communication, by the author, to point out the advantages ancj disadvantages of administering strychnia by the cellular tissue; and to indicate, as far as his practical experience of the use of that alkaloid has gone, what difference of action may be expected when it is subcutaneously given, from its usual effects when given by the mouth. Pereira tells us that, of aU diseases for which nux vomica has been employed, in none has it been so successful as in paralysis, and it is deserving of notice that this is one of the few remedies whose discovery is not the result of mere chance, since Fouquier was led to its use by legitimate induction from observations of its physiological effects/'i Valuable as strychnia has proved as a nervine tonic, and more particularly in paralysis, there are some forms of nervous debility in which it is not only useless, but even injurious. Very often strychnia has been given for a considerable length of time in chronic paralytic affections with entirely negative results. The question may be asked why the strychnia has b(!cu thus inefii- cacious, and whether the inertness has been due to its ad minis-' tration by the mouth, or whether the lesion has been of some part of the cerebro-spinal system over which strychnia has no sj)ecific action ? Now I think I shall be able to prove that the mode by which this alkaloid is introduced into the system is one cause of difference of action. That such is the case with morphia and atropia, when introduced by different means into the system, I have long main- tained, and am happy to see my views so thoroughly corroborated ' Pcroirn, ' Materia Me<lin),' vol. ii, p. 610. /I