TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 125 



ments ; but as the effect of atropia itself is to excite the nervous ceutre, it ought, 

 according to his supposition, to have increased instead of removing the hreathlessness. 

 When the idea that the dyspncea was due to contraction of the puhnonary capil- 

 laries suggested itself to Ur. Brunton, he proceeded to test it by experiment. 

 He first gave a rabbit such a dose of chloral hydrate as to deprive it of all sensibi- 

 lity, then put a tube into the windpipe and connected it with a pair of bellows. lie 

 was thus able to inflate the animal's lungs at regular inter^■als nnd keep up respira- 

 tion artificially when the animal could no longer breathe itself. He next opened 

 the thoracic cavity so as to observe the slightest change in the lungs or heart. He 

 injected a little niuscarin into the jugular vein, when the lungs which had been pr^- 

 viously rosy became blanched, the right side of the heart swelled up, the veins 

 passing to it became enormously distended, and the left side of the heart almost 

 empty. Shortly afterwards he injected a little atropia into the jugular vein. At 

 once the effects of the muscarin disappeared, and every thing assumed its normal 

 appearance. From the want of muscarin he had not pursued his investigations, but 

 hoped shortly to do so. 



Hitherto he had proceeded on the assumption that Drs. Parkcs's and Johnson'.s 

 theory of cholera was correct, and that the stoppage of the circulation in cholera was 

 due to contractions of the arterioles of the lungs, as it was iir muscarin-poisoning. In 

 poisoning by muscarin the great veins of the thorax and abdomen and the right side 

 of the heart seemed to be almost equally distended, and exactly the same condition 

 was found in persons who had died of cholera. But it was not certain that the right 

 side of the heart was always so much distended during life, even when the symptoms 

 of cholera were present in their most pronoimced form. It would almost seem that 

 the veins dilated still more in cholera-collapse than they did in muscarin-poisoning. 

 Nitrite of amyl has the power of dilating the arterioles throughout the body, and iu 

 those of the lungs also ; but it was found practically to be of no use in cholera. The 

 pulse might become a little stronger and the surface a little warmer, but the improve- 

 nient was so slight tliat it is hardly worth mentioning, and the patient felt no better 

 for the medicine either when inhaled or when injected subcutaneously. If the weak- 

 ness of the pulse depended only on contraction of the vessels in the lungs, this result 

 would be astonishing ; but if they supposed it to be caused by dilatation of the great 

 veins, it was just what they would expect. From these and other facts. Dr. Brunton 

 concluded that the veins were dilated, and that therefore some remedy must be em- 

 ployed which would make them contract. Tliere were very few experiments on 

 the contractility of the veins ; but in the condition of depression or shock following 

 severe injuries, in which the veins were much dilated, digitalis had been found 

 useful, and it might prove useful in cholera also. Atropia had been lately tried in 

 cholera by an American practitioner with considerable success, and it seemed 

 deserving of a more extensive trial. 



It would not do, however, to consider the action of any proposed remedy for 

 cholera on the circulation alone, and to leave out of account its effect upon the in- 

 testinal secretion. He therefore set to work to discover the action of atropia upon 

 the intestinal secretion. Since the effect of cholera upon the intestine was the same 

 as that of division of its nerves, which was one cause of secretion, tliey were justified 

 in believing that if any drug could stop the secretion in Moreau's experiment of 

 dividing the intestinal nerves it was likely to have a similar effect on cholera. 

 Now atropia had remarkable power to stop secretion from the salivating and sweat 

 glands when their nerves are irritated, rendering the mouth and slcin quite drj'. 

 "What its effect on paralytic secretion in the salivating glands might be he did not 

 know ; but thinking that it might arrest the flow of fluid into the intestine, he 

 repeated Moreau's experiment and injected some solution of atropia into the vein 

 of the animal. On killing it some hours afterwards, he found that there was fluid 

 iu that part of the intestine the nerves of which had been divided. The 

 dose, however, was not large ; and he comforted himself with the hope that a large 

 dose might do, though a small one would not. He afterwards tested the power of 

 atropia to check the secretion induced by injection of sulphate of magnesia into the 

 intestine, both by injecting a mixture of sulphate of magnesia and atropia into the 

 intestine and by injecting sulphate of magnesia alone into the bowel, and a solution 

 of atropia into the veins. In both cases he used very large doses of atropia, but 



