960 MECHANICAL INJURIES OF THE BRAIN. 



In cases of compression and concussion of the 

 brain, the symptoms are nearly the same as in 

 the worst forms of apoplexy. The breathing is 

 slow and stertorous, the surface and extremities 

 cold, the pulse feeble, with prostration of strength, 

 loss of appetite, nausea, and suppression or de- 

 rangement of all the secretions. Owing to the 

 vitiated condition of the blood, it fails to unite 

 with the solids, so that although less caloric is 

 obtained by respiration than during health, it is 

 not transferred to the solids, and expended in 

 maintaining their activity, but accumulates in the 

 body, causing the preternatural temperature of 



tary muscles are exhausted by violent exercise. Judging from 

 my own experience during the last five years, I should say that 

 intense and long continued action of the brain, has a direct ten- 

 dency to impede the nutritive process, by which its composition 

 and power are perpetually renovated. For I have observed 

 in very many instances, after a few hours severe application, 

 (especially when the general strength was much reduced,) that the 

 forehead became feverish, and hotter than any other part of the 

 body, shewing that the caloric sent to that organ, in combina- 

 tion with arterial blood, was not all employed and expended in 

 maintaining the renewal of its substance and vitality. At such 

 times, the circulation through the brain was so far impeded as to 

 cause a preternatural throbbing of the carotid arteries ; and the 

 loss of mental power was often such as to prevent all successful 

 exertion ; but was uniformly more or less restored by the appli- 

 cation of cold water to the head, moderate exercise in the open 

 air, and the conversation of agreeable company. The most 

 effectual method of prosecuting any literary or scientific enter- 

 prize which requires intense application, is to pursue the subject 

 at leisure, so as never to induce exhaustion of the nervous system. 



