Volume 2

On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

  • Wilson, James Arthur, 1795-1882.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and, therefore, upon the nerve, as being one of the parts of its entire organized structure. States of the muscle are necessarily implied by states of the blood. And, upon the blood, let it be remembered, not only in the composition of its material, but upon the blood organized and discharging functions many and vari- ous; upon the blood in its “habits as it lives,” the muscle is made to depend. Its lively function at once ceases under any great vice of the blood. There are many states of the blood, not to be appreciated by chemical analysis, which must still be admitted in estimating the influence of this great living agent upon the functions of the muscle. By chemistry, it is now proclaimed, we are for the future to learn the body through the blood. But it was not from chemistry, let us still, while in its school, remember, that the great functional truths of medicine were first received. Chemistry did not teach us the blood in circulation; or the blood arresting its own current by self-coagulation; the contractility of the blood, or, through it, that of the muscle. Yet from the animal chemist, as he is now employed, it is indeed probable that our greatest gains will henceforth accrue. No longer satisfied with the mere analysis of solid or fluid in limited portions, when dead and out of the body, he infers, by careful analogy, the properties and behaviour of the great living mass in remainder. He distinguishes the elementary prin- ciples of blood in the porringer, that he may supply them when needed, as remedies, to its current. But let not fashion betray us. Already the physician has