PREFACE. VU 



always of their actual appearance in print. The Harveian 

 Oration has been placed first because the short history which 

 it gives of the physiology and pharmacology of the circulation 

 serves to some extent as an introduction to the other papers. 



The period over which the researches described in these 

 papers extends (1865 to 1883) is an important one in the 

 history of the pharmacology of the circulation, for its beginning 

 coincides with the first employment in this country of 

 registering apparatus for the investigation of the action of 

 drugs on the circulation, and before its end this method was 

 in regular use. After Blake's experiments with a simple 

 mercurial column in 1844, little or no work was done on the 

 action of drucrs until Traube, in 1851,* investigated the action 

 of digitalis with one of Lud wig's kymographs, and in 1865 to 

 1866, Von Bezold did his classical researches on the action 

 of atropine and veratrine.f 



When I began my experiments on digitalis in 1865, I 

 believe there was no recording physiological instrument of any 

 kind in use in this country, with the exception of one or two 

 of Marey's sphygmographs, one of which was kindly lent to 

 me by Dr. Arthur Gamgee, and one kymograph which Burden 

 Sa' derson completed in May, 1865, but which was not 

 described until 186 T.J Under the guidance of Dr. Gamgee 

 I made experiments on the blood pressure in animals under 

 the influence of digitalis with a simple mercurial column, and 

 on myself with the sphygmograph. The facility which I thus 

 acquired in using the instrument enabled me while acting as 

 house physician to utilize it in ascertaining the rise in blood 

 pressure which occurred in angina pectoris in a hospital 

 patient, and by correlating the pathological data thus acquired 

 with the knowledge of the pharmacological action of nitrite 

 of amyl which Gamgee l\ad obtained, I succeeded in discovering 

 a remedy for angina pectoris. 



This discovery may, I think, be fairly regarded as the first 



* Traube, Charite Annalen 2ter Jahrg. und Gesammte Beitrdge, vol. i, 

 pp. 190 and 274. 



t Von Bezold, Wiirzhurger physiol. Untersuchungen, T and II. 

 X Bm-duu Sanderson, Fhil. Trans., 1867, p. 576. 



