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274 Extracts from Ctirrent 
gressive failure of the heart’s action in inanition, than of hoping for a 
permanent good result, I injected the two-hundred-and-fortieth of a grain 
of sulphate of atropia into the arm of an infant ten weeks old, at a time 
when, excepting a few beats now and then, the pulse was imperceptible 
at the wrist, and the cardiac systoles only 80. Within four minutes, the 
pulse rose to 100, and each beat was quite perceptible at the wrist. In 
eight minutes, it had increased to one hundred and ten, and was quite 
regular and distinct. The stimulant continued for the next three hours; 
and at the end of this time the pulse was too, of good volume, and of 
sufficient force to bear compression without obliteration. The respiration 
remained unaltered, and the pupils dilated from one-twelfth to one- 
seventh of an inch. The stimulant effect upon the pulse continued to 
within half an hour of the death of the child, five hours and a half after 
the injection of the atropia. 
As a diuretic^ belladonna may be used in cases of supj)ression of urhie^ 
whether accompanied by urgemic symptoms or not. As both the sluggish 
circulation and the torpid kidney are simultaneously aroused by the 
medicine, there is ground for expecting a restoration of the renal 
secretion. 
In acute neEi^ritis^ we may hope for beneficial results from the use of 
belladonna, which, coming in contact with the irritated and congested 
organ, will doubtless calm the nervous irritation, -^and at the same time 
contract the dilated bloodvessels. I am at the present time busily em- 
ployed in determining tlie efib'^' of its operation in congested and 
ifiammatory ' Iney; and, so far as my experience 
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