Clinical essays / by Benjamin Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical essays / by Benjamin Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    gallons instituted after death. If, on such inquiry, the cause of death should have been cardiac apncea, there will in the majority of cases be found sufficient evidence of disease, either in the walls of the heart, or in the condition of the blood, of the great blood-vessels, or of the coronary vessels, to account for what has occurred ; while the absence of strych- nine on chemical research will determine the dia- gnosis. In strychnine poisoning, on the other hand, the detection of the poison, whatever may be the state of the circulatory system, will be sufficient in itself to secure a direct affirmation of the cause of the symptoms, and the nature of the death. There is only one other disease which might be confounded with cardiac apncea; namely, hysteric spasm. Here, however, the antecedent history of the hysteric paroxysm, the character of the paroxysm itself, its peculiar intermittent type, its connection with partial syncope and unconsciousness, its freedom from intermission of the circulatory pulsation, its occurrence, in short, without evidence of disease of the heart, and its comparative freedom from danger, will usually free the practitioner from any doubt of having mistaken it for its more formidable rival car- diac apnoGa. Absolute Diagnosis. The absolute diagnosis of car- diac apncea during the paroxysms may be stated thus. It is an apncea with open air-passages; not panting breathlessness, but suppressed breathing. The strug- gle for breath is due to spasmodic contraction of the R 2