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46 
iExtvactiS front d?ordgn Sournalg. 
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INJECTION OF MEDICINES INTO THE VEINS. 
By M. Dupuy. , 
LONG intrusted with the teaching of materia medica^ (raison- 
neej or, what Bourgelat styles, the science of indications, I 
have anxiously sought every means to simplify it and free it 
from a multitude of medicinal substances handed down to us 
from old traditions in the works of the present day, and which 
but for them might have had their virtues (but too often ma¬ 
nifesting' contrarieties) put to the test of accurate observation. 
With this view, I have practised numerous injections into the 
veins of animals: a mode of administration eligible for its sim¬ 
plicity, since only such medicines can be used as are soluble in 
water, the common vehicle in the pharmacy, and since it ad¬ 
mits of greater precision in determining the part subject to the 
medicinal influence; an influence modified by a variety of cir¬ 
cumstances when the medicine is administered through the or¬ 
dinary channels. 
I have observed also that medicines injected into the veins 
in a state of solution, even in very small doses, exert a quicker 
and more intense effect. Aloes, which requires from 18 to 20 
hours to take effect within the bowels, operates immediately 
when injected. In many cases, those, for example, of disten¬ 
tion of the stomach, the administration of drinks, even the 
mildest, excite alarming convulsions, the consequence of which 
is often rupture of that viscus. Here injection would be the 
preferable mode. 
With a view of coming at the action of the medicine itself, 
and not confounding it with the effects of t\\e water, M. Dupuy 
very properly sets out with the injection of plain water, first 
raised to the temperature , of the body. His method of proceed¬ 
ing is this. The jugular vein is opened with a common phleme, 
as in bleeding; a canula or pipe with very contracted orifices is 
introduced in a direction downwards—towards the heart, and 
maintained therein by an assistant; the syringe containing the 
liquid is then applied, and the injection is slowly and cautiously 
conducted. Afterwards the wound is pinned up as after bleed- 
May 27th, 1826. Eight pints of warm water were injected 
into the veins of a young glandered horse. Immediately re- 
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