[From British Medical Journal, 13th January, 1923.] 



SOME APPLICATIONS OF PHYSIOLOGY 

 TO MEDICINE. 



I.— SENSORY PHENOMENA ASSOCIATED WITH DEFEC- 

 TIVE BLOOD SUPPLY TO WORKING MUSCLES. 



BY 



J. A. Mac WILLIAM, M.D., F.R,S., 



PROFESSOB OF PHYSIOLOGY, 

 AND 



W. J. WEBSTER, M.B., 



ASSISTANT IK PHYSIOLOGY, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABEBDEEN. 



(From the Physiological Laboratory.) 



Accurate knowledge of the effects of defective blood supply 

 to the various tissues and organs is obviously of great 

 importance in view of the innumerable conditions of stress, 

 derangement, and disease in which this factor comes into 

 play, with manifold results in the way of disturbed or im- 

 paired functions in the different systems of the body. 

 " Defective supply " naturally covers different conditions- 

 quantitative deficiency in normal constituents, or the presence 

 of abnormal and injurious constituents, or inadequacy as 

 regards the volume, pressure, and rapidity of flow of normal 

 blood. This communication deals with the last-named — 

 certain effects of deficiency in the supply of normal blood to 

 normal muscles. 



Many impairments of functional activity from more or 

 less extensive interference with blood supply have long been 

 known, such as the weakening of the heart muscle from 

 deficient coronary supply and the common occurrence of 

 fibrillation after sudden coronary obstruction ; the effects 

 on the brain in the form of giddiness, faintness, or loss of 

 consciousness; and the primarily exciting and secondarily 

 depressing influences exercised powerfully on the medulla 

 (respiratory, vasomotor, and cardio-inhibitory centres, etc.) 

 and on the spinal centres from sufficiently extensive or sudden 

 acute lack of blood supply ; also the derangement or stoppage 

 of kidney function from similar interference. 



Various observations are on record dealing with the func- 

 tional behaviour of excised organs and muscles artificially 

 perfused with blood or in the exsanguine condition, and also 

 observations on the effects of artificial interference with the 

 blood supply of organs and muscles in situ in animal experi- 

 ments. Under such conditions there is of course no informa- 

 tion obtainable as to sensory phenomena attendant on altered 

 blood supply in the conditions of rest and activity. 



The present inquiry deals with the behaviour of human 

 muscles temporarily deprived of their blood supply while their 

 normal innervation remains intact ; the sensory phenomena 



[562/22] 



