Further observations and experiments regarding the true nature of tetanus / by Sydney Ringer and William Murrell.

  • Ringer, Sydney, 1835-1910.
Date:
[1877?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Further observations and experiments regarding the true nature of tetanus / by Sydney Ringer and William Murrell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    1 HU fLfiisf dfPnH [From tlie Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Vol. XLJ s FURTHER OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS RE- GARDING THE TRUE NATURE OF TETANUS. By Sydney Ringer, M.D., Professor of Therapeutics at University College, and William Murrell, L.R.C.P., Medical Registrar at Westminster Hospital. In a paper published in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions for 1876, we controverted the view commonly accepted that tetanus is always due to increased excitability of the spinal cord, and we detailed numerous experiments to prove that in tetanus the resistance of the cord is diminished or. destroyed, so that an impression conveyed by an afferent nerve can spread throughout the reflex portion of the central nervous system and produce tetanus. Many persons having expressed strong doubt as to the existence of this “resistance,” we propose now to give the reasons for our belief in this property, and to shew that it is not fixed, nor unmodifiable, but that probably disease, certainly some drugs, will weaken or destroy it, the other functions of the cord meanwhile remaining unimpaired or but slightly depressed. We first draw attention to the fact that this resistance is recognised in recent works on Physiology. Thus Hermann says, resistance of the cord is lessened in tetanus, and Ferrier, that in strychnia tetanus “the resistance to radiation is diminished.” This view, however, is more definitely and more cogently piopounded by Dr Michael Foster, than by any other physiolo- gist with whom we are acquainted. In his recent Text Book of Physiology he explains in the most luminous way the part which “ resistance ” plays in nervous phenomena1. Whilst this paper is m the press, our attention has been called to Bern- stein s Nerven und Muskel-Systeme, 1871. In Section iv. he arrives at very conclusions to those we have expressed in the paper already referred £ He says, Physiological facts point to the conclusion that there is a connection points to .s? fsus ssj^ss^a mow, aud proem,, in th. perorivmgcS orgSlT«b£ ft*S'i?2gd VOL. XI. M '