C6 ox DIGITALIS, WITH SOME OBSEKYATIOXS ON THE UPJNE. 



remedy has been discontinued. Wundeiiicli* says that when 

 digitalis is given in typhoid fever, in doses of 30 to 60 grains in 

 three to five days, a remarkable diminution of the number of 

 pulsations, simultaneously with marked decrease of temperature, 

 takes place generally about the fourth day, and they fall after 

 the medicine is discontinued ; but the effect on the pulse is 

 much more permanent than on the temperature, lasting in many 

 cases for several weeks in succession. It should only be used 

 when the pulse is 120 and the evening temperature is 105°, and 

 with slight remissions ; and less of the drug is required to 

 produce its effects than in pneumonia and other acute diseases. 



Notwithstanding the opinion of M. Schneider, it seems 

 probable that the diminution of the temperature from thera- 

 peutic doses of digitalis depends, at least in the first instance, on 

 the slower circulation of the blood through the periphery ; but 

 though the weight of authority is in favour of this opinion, it 

 is possible that the diminution is owing to alteration of tissue 

 change, and that another alteration is the cause of the tempera- 

 ture rising while the pulse remains slow. I think that it is not 

 .so much to the change in the circulation that the coldness in 

 poisoning is owing so much as to absolute decrease of the animal 

 heat, for on one occasion the breath felt cold to the hand, and 

 the relaxed state of the capillaries, while it would aid in rapidly 

 ■ cooling the blood and thus the internal parts, would rather tend 

 to keep the periphery warm. 



Traube thinks that the lowering of the temperature is due to 

 less rapid oxygenation of the blood from the slower current 

 through the lungs. 



On the Nervous System. — In large doses in animals digitalis 

 affects both the sensory and motor system, causing a comatose 

 or semi-comatose state, and insensibility to external impres- 

 sions, muscular weakness which causes a stumbling, uncertain 

 gait, and an appearance of a kind of paralysis of the hind 

 quarters, so that the animal with difficulty drags them after 

 Mm. In some cases there are twitchings of the muscles of the 

 face and alse nasi, or the muscles of the skin over the body, 

 causing an appearance which is sometimes mistaken for convul- 



* Med. Times and Gaz., July 12, 1862, and Arch. d. EeilJc., 1862, p. 118. 



