A treatise on headache and neuralgia : including spinal irritation and a disquisition on normal and morbid sleep / by J. Leonard Corning ; with an appendix, Eye strain, a cause of headache, by David Webster.
- James Leonard Corning
- Date:
- 1890 [©1888]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on headache and neuralgia : including spinal irritation and a disquisition on normal and morbid sleep / by J. Leonard Corning ; with an appendix, Eye strain, a cause of headache, by David Webster. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![narcotine, and narceine have not met with an exten- sive employment in neuralgic affections, and morphine must still be regarded as the most important alkaloid of the opium group. Of the remaining narcotics atropine, or belladonna, is worthy of special consideration, in connection with the therapeutics of neuralgia. The action of this drug is powerful, and it has been known to allay pain in cases where the administration of morphia has been entirely without result. Owing, however, to its ex- tremely poisonous nature, even when administered in small doses, it should be resorted to only in cases where other means have failed. Atropine is said to increase the irritability of the gray substance of the spinal cord, and its action upon the vaso-motor and respiratory centres is particularly pronounced. By stimulating the centre of the cardiac or accelatory nerve it acts as a powerful heart tonic, and Harley] has recommended it in this connection. It has long been customary to employ narcotics in neuralgic affections in the form of various ointments; but of recent years the practice has been more or less neglected. An explanation for this is found in the difficulty experienced in causing these ointments to penetrate the stratum of epidermal cells. I have found that the efficacy of all such preparations is greatly en- hanced by removing the superior layer of dead epider- mial cells before applying the ointment. Moreover, I have observed that if the skin be in a state of more or less congestion, the efficacy of the ointment is cor- respondingly enhanced. Acting upon these two observations, I have elabo- rated the following method, to which I invariably 1 Harley on the Action and Uses of Belladonna, Braithwaite's Retrospect, Vol. LVIL, 1868.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21225461_0130.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
