180 



THE VASCULAK SYSTEM 



Rabbit : 1-2 c.m. Diphtheria Toxin injected. 

 Collapse after Diphtheria Toxin. 



Mr. H. P. Dean informs the writer that in spinal anaesthesia 

 produced by Stovain (injected into the lumbar part of the spinal 

 canal), the sensory anaesthesia spreads upwards to a higher level 

 than the motor paralysis, and the medullary centres are unaffected 

 or almost so when the anaesthesia has spread even to the head. 

 The sensory synapses are the first to fail. The blood pressure 

 falls some 20 mm. Hg only, showing that the visceral vaso- 

 constrictor nerves are maintained in good state. To sum up 

 then, the condition of shock or collapse is associated with cessation 

 of the reflexes which maintain the body in a state of vascular 

 tone and muscular activity. Hence the stagnation of the blood, 

 fall of blood pressure, and loss of body heat. 



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MacWilliam, Proc. Roy. Soc., Ixx., p. 109, 1902. 



Lister, Brit. Med. Journ., 1899, 1, p. 924. 



W. Russell, Arterial Hypertonus, Sclerosis and Blood Pressure, 1907. 



G. Oliver, Studies in Blood Pressure, 1908. 



Roy and Adami, The Practitioner, xlv., p. 32. 



Howell and Brush, Bost. Med. Surg. Journ., cxiv., 146, 1901. 



G. J. Martin, Brit. Med. Journ., 1905, 1, p. 870. 



Erlanger, Amer. Journ. of Physiol., x., 1904. 



McCay, Lancet, 1907, i., p. 1484. 



Dahlgren and Kepner, The Principles of Histology, Macmillan, 1908. 



Thoma, Textbook of General Pathology, Trans. A. Bruce, 1896. 



