104 
ACTION OF MEDICINES AND OF POISONS. 
be dissected alive, until by the last sigh from his lungs, 
and by the last pulsation from his heart, he ends his ac¬ 
count with his inconsiderate, ungenerous, and ungrateful 
country \” 
As the author of this work is, I believe, a personal friend 
of the Emperor of the French, these observations will, no 
doubt, make an impression that will have a tendency to 
mitigate such sufferings, if not abolish such practices, in 
France. Trusting, also, that by the aid of the Lancet , 
unnecessary bleedings may, in like cases, be abolished in 
both countries, 
I remain, Sir, 
Your very obedient servant, 
John Scott Lillie. 
* >i. 
THE ACTION OF MEDICINES AND OE POISONS. 
* r * - ' ' 
By M. Claude Bernard. 
From a lecture f On the General Effects of Medicinal Sub¬ 
stances,’ lately published in the Medical Times and Gazette , 
we extract the following : 
6e It is therefore our opinion that medicines, as well as 
poisons, exert their power exclusively upon certain histological 
elements, even in cases in which they appear to produce a 
general perturbation of the wTole system. Thus, for instance, 
we find that strychnia localizes its action entirely upon the 
sensitive nerves ; and that wherever the torrent of the circu¬ 
lation conveys it, all the properties of the recurrent nervous 
fibres are destroyed : so that even before reaching the spinal 
cord it has already paralysed the extremities of the nerves 
which revert towards their central axis. On the other hand, 
woorara concentrates upon the motor nerves alone its noxious 
influence, and wherever it meets them, paralyses at once their 
properties; and in this manner, without doing the slightest 
injury to glands, muscles, vessels, or other tissues, it arrests 
at one blow the most indispensable functions of life. But the 
action of poisons introduced into the blood is not invariably 
directed towards the nervous system. All the other tissues, 
and even the blood itself, have their own peculiar poisons, 
capable of modifying their vital properties. Both digitalis, 
and the juice of the upas antiar, enjoy the pow r er of destroying 
muscular contractility throughout the entire system. We 
