Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
701/740

modus operandi of this poison, when partially decomposed, (?) to be then quite different from that of pure nicotina; for the func- tions of the heart and lungs were direct/// affected by the latter; i. e., by the impure article; while the pure poison chiefly spent its physiological action on the capillary circulation alone. Be- sides, the pure article produced tetanic rigidity of the limbs, while the impure, though more largely given, did not. Nico- tine (i. e. tobacco juice) may therefore be employed as a remedy for poison by strychnine; but it must be promptly and freely given, as the one poison neutralizes the other. I look upon the continuous current of galvanism applied to the spine, and nico- tine as such, or as tobacco smoke or tea, administered by ene- mata, or otherwise, as the only two direct antispasmodics known to the medical art. Again, it is found that opium and belladonna are mutually remedial; i. e., when either of them has entered the system in too large or poisonous dose. This has been suggested by Dr. Corrigan, and proved by Dr. Graves. It is shown that if these two articles are given together, sleep is not induced; but if given separately, their individual and peculiar effects are realized. Dr. Wharton Jones, in the course of his researches on the state of the Wood and blood vessels in inflammation, found that an artery in the web of a frog's foot, under the microscope, was constricted in a varicose manner, almost to obliteration, from the application of a solution of the sulphate of atropia, (belladonna,) while at the same time the blood in the corresponding capillaries and venous radicles was in a state bordering on complete stagnation. The blood was but just flowing in the constricted artery, when he applied to it some of the liquor opii sedativus, and the effect was a prompt and full dilatation of the artery, and a brisk flow of blood. On the other hand, he found that arteries that had been dilated by the liquor opii applied to them, contracted again when that was washed away, and a solution of atropia applied in its place. The fact is, the kidneys are not to "form " urine, but rather to take up and separate from the blood certain substances that have become useless or hurtful to the system. Dr. Bence