On the speedy relief of pain and other nervous affections, by means of the hypodermic method / by Charles Hunter.

  • Hunter, Charles, 1834 or 1835-1878.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the speedy relief of pain and other nervous affections, by means of the hypodermic method / 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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    Case I.—On the 3rd of June, 1863, Mrs. B., aged sixty-three, consulted nie about an attack of sciatica ft-om which she suffered. She had walked lame on account of the pain for two years. Rheumatism and great mental anxiety had preceded it. She had taken two or three grains of morphia daily, by the advice of a London physician, up to the time I first saw her. The atropine injection, A of a grain, in the arm, produced its cha- racteristic phenomena u]ion the system ; and forthwith removed the pain. Slie hud no pain from that time for about a year, when she came up i'rom the country and again received similar benefit. Case IT.—In Jainiary, 1859, INTrs. R. had severe facial neu- ralgia, which had lasted some montlis, and defied ordinary inter- nal as well as local treatment. I injected the arm of the same side of tlie body, with the acetate of morphia. It caused con- siderable gastric irritation, and yet cured the neuralgia. She has had no return of it since that single puncture six years ago. Case III.—G. C, aged nineteen, tic-doloureux, left facial region. Duration, three months, quinine and other treatment previously tried Avithout .effect for several weeks. Atropine puncture was used on November 16th, 1863, and at intervals of two or three days as the pain happened to recur; each puncture removed the pain before he reached home. He was cured in a fortnight. No return when seen five months after. The injec- tions were made in tire arm of the opposite side of the body. Case IV.—Mrs. A. T., October, 1863, came to the Dispen- sary suffering from facial and lingual tic of two years' standing; sleepless nights for months together. Atropine punctures in the arm were made on January 15th, 16th, and 18th, 1864. She has been free from pain up to the present date, general condition greatly improved since the pain has been removed. I will not take up time by giving more examples. These cases must suffice to show how injection of any part of the cellular tissue (pro- vided the alkaloid employed be the^ correct one).-will remove neuralgia, and a morbid state of the nerves in any other part of the body; and they clearly show how much larger a class of neuralgic affections may thus be treated, than was dreamed possible by the advocates of the exclusive method of Wood. But, althougli Dr. AVood during many years employed the syringe for neuralgic pain alone, he was fully aware of the effect his local injection had upon tlie system generally. In the very first case that he treated, the patient's eyes became injected, and looked just like the eyes of a drunken person. * It is curious, also, to observe that the two chief dangers that he alluded to, in his lecture in 1858, as likely to arise from in-
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