Report on the effects of artificial respiration, intravenous injection of ammonia, and administration of various drugs, &c. in Indian and Australian snake-poisoning, and the physiological, chemical, and microscopical nature of snake-poisons / by the commission appointed to investigate the subject.

Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the effects of artificial respiration, intravenous injection of ammonia, and administration of various drugs, &c. in Indian and Australian snake-poisoning, and the physiological, chemical, and microscopical nature of snake-poisons / by the commission appointed to investigate the subject. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the more or less general convulsions which immediately precede a fatal result; fifthly, the almost contemporaneous or consecutive supervention of complete insensibility. From the delay which afterwards takes place in the cessation of the action of the heart, it may be reasonably concluded that the organic system of nerves is the last to suffer. It is also clear, from the augmented frequency of the pulsations of the heart, after the respiration has ceased, that the inhibitory or regulating power of the pneumogastric nerves over the central organ of circulation, has been partially annulled or materially disturbed. Still, notwithstanding the removal of this influence, the comparative freedom of the sympathetic system of nerves from implication—until respira- tion has ceased, either from paralysis of the central ganglia which preside over and regulate this function, or paralysis of the peripheral distribution of the excitor or motor nerves, or all together—renders it possible to prolong life for a con- siderable period, even when animals have been subjected to an overwhelming quantity of the poison. Hence, owing to the great freedom of the sympathetic ganglia and nerves which preside over the organs of circulation, secretion, excretion, from the primary action of the poison, their functions can be maintained for varying periods, even after the apparent death of the cerebro-spinal nervous system. 10. It is manifest from these experiments that, if the poison exerted the same deleterious influence on the organic, as it does on the cerebro-spinal system of nerves, it would be impossible to restore the function of the lungs and to continue that of the circulation, secretion, excretion, and, it may be for anything we know to the contrary, nutrition also, to a limited extent. That secretion and excretion are continued during the process of maintaining the circulation by means of artificial respiration was constantly noticed in the shedding of tears, in the expulsion of saliva, and of the urine, sometimes with, sometimes without, the application of galvanism. Further, the movements of the irides in response to galvanism probably support the view herein enunciated. 11. The frequent vomiting and defsecation as early symptoms of poisoning, the excessive flow of urine and saliva later on, all indicate an attempt on the part of nature to eliminate the poison from the body. Whether nature ever succeeds, except to a very partial extent in excretiug much of the virus, it is difficult to say. All that can be declared at