A practical treatise on apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage), its pathology, diagnosis, therapeutics, and prophylaxis : with an essay on (so-called) nervous apoplexy, on congestion of the brain and serous effusion / by William Boyd Mushet.

  • Boyd-Mushet, William.
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on apoplexy (cerebral hemorrhage), its pathology, diagnosis, therapeutics, and prophylaxis : with an essay on (so-called) nervous apoplexy, on congestion of the brain and serous effusion / by William Boyd Mushet. 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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    produce disastrous consequences, as in syncope, pres- sure on, or ligature of, the carotids, and excessive action of the left ventricle (?); but I maintain that, in the respective cases, these do not depend on mere diminution or increase of blood within the head, or on variation of pressure, but on circumstances connected with the nutrition of the brain, which I shall more fully consider after completion of the subject of cerebral hemorrhage. The points most important to be here considered in connection with abnormalities of the encephalic vascular supply are, their practical bearings on the occurrence of apoplexy; and I fully agree with Dr. Kellie (loc. cit.), who believed the agency of the causes which have been presumed to have a powerful and undoubted tendency to force blood into, or to confine it within, the vessels of the brain, so as to produce a dangerous morbid congestion, has been greatly over- rated, and that while the structure of the brain remains healthy and unchanged and its vessels sound, these causes are little capable of occasioning plethora, congestions, effusions, or comatose diseases. When we reflect that those pursuing the most laborious employments and taking the most violent exercise, as artisans, athletes, runners, divers, children, and what is more weighty, that those suffering from obstructive, simple hypertrophous, and other affections of the heart are not, in early life, prone to true apoplectic seizures, we must admit that simple modifi- cation in the conditions of supply of blood to the brain does not singly exercise any material pressure or other influence in the causation of apoplexy. Having disposed of the circulation within the cranium,
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