A treatise of the materia medica and therapeutics (Volume 1).

  • Eberle, John, 1787-1838.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise of the materia medica and therapeutics (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    plaint, or so far interrupted the habits of diseased action in the stomach, that antispasmodic and tonic medicines would, in general, complete the cure.* Dr. Joseph Smith, of New-York, has published some interesting observations on the employment of emetics in spasmodic diseases. The experience I have had,'7 says he, of the utility of emetics in hysteria and epilepsy, enables me to assert, with confidence, that they are more effica- cious than any remedy ordinarily employed.f In asthma emetics are highly useful. They not only assist materially in expelling the viscid mucus from the bronchia, but operate in a direct manner in facilitating the transmission of the blood from the right to the left side of the heart, the impeded course of which forms, perhaps, the chief source of distress in this and other similar affections. That the operation of an emetic pro- duces this effect, is evident from the circumstances which take place during the act of vomiting. During this process the diaphragm is drawn downwards, by which the thoracic cavity is enlarged, and the lungs are in a full state of inspiration, and therefore expand- ed to the utmost degree. The necessary consequence of this is, that the blood which had congested in the pulmonary arteries, right side of the heart, and large venous trunks, in consequence of the previous inadequate expansion of the lungs, is now, during the act of vomit- ing, permitted to pass on with freedom to the right side of the heart. And hence, in part, the temporary relief almost invariably obtained from full vomiting in this disease. * American Medical Recorder, vol. iv. p. 259. t Transactions of the New-York Physico-Medical Society, vol. i,