On the contractility or irritability of the muscles of paralysed limbs, and their excitability by the galvanic current, in comparison with the corresponding muscles of healthy limbs / by Robert Bentley Todd.

  • Todd, Robert Bentley, 1809-1860.
Date:
[1847]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the contractility or irritability of the muscles of paralysed limbs, and their excitability by the galvanic current, in comparison with the corresponding muscles of healthy limbs / by Robert Bentley Todd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    the irritability of its muscles; and this, again, gave confirma- tion to the hypothesis that the spinal cord was the source of muscular irritability; and that the ordinary actions of the brain served to exhaust this irritability, which, of course, would accumulate in the muscles, when the exhausting power of the brain had been withdrawn through the influence of disease.* Feeling much dissatisfied with these views, which appeared to me to be inconsistent with many ascertained facts in the physiological history of the brain and spinal cord, 1 deter- mined to repeat the experiments whenever opportunity offered, and I now venture to lay the results of my Observations be- fore the Society. I may here state, that most of my experiments were made in hospital practice, and in presence of a large number of students, who generally attended in greater numbers when they knew that something experimental or operative was to be shown. In the experiments the electro-dynamic machine was used, which was supplied with a single cell of DanielFs constant battery. Latterly I have employed the magneto-electric rota- tion machine, which does not require a battery, and which is on that account peculiarly convenient for medical purposes. It is very easy to regulate the rapidity and \dolence of the shocks. Only rarely have I used the galvanic battery alone; the use of this mode of developing the electric current is dif- ficult in practice, in consequence of the trouble necessary to be taken to prepare the battery. A little consideration will, I think, indicate that the results of the experiments need not be in any way affected by the instrument employed. The electro-dynamic apparatus is but • We may further deduce, says Dr. Hall, from the facts which have been detailed, that the spinal marrow, and not the cerebrum, is the special som-ce of the power in the nerves of exciting contraction, and of the irritability of the muscular fibre; that the cerebrum is, on the contrary, the exhauster, through its acts of volition, of the muscular irritabiHty. Med.- Chir. Trans., vol. xxii. p. 205.