Epilepsy and other convulsive affections : their pathology and treatment / by Charles Bland Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epilepsy and other convulsive affections : their pathology and treatment / by Charles Bland Radcliffe. 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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    merits of the “ vascular area ” of animals before the formation of the heart, or of the laticiferous vessels of plants. Now these fugitive centres of fluctuating movement occur in a web of vessels of unequal sizes; and it is this fact which appears to be con- cerned in the explanation of the difficulty. As- suming, indeed, that the reaction between the vessels and their contents will be proportionate to the extent of the coats and the quantity of the contents, and that for this reason the larger vessels will experience a greater degree of expansion than the smaller,—it follows that the largest vessels will tend to become still larger, and that they will go on expanding and filling until a limit is reached in which the elongating fibres of the vessels are elon- gated to the full extent of which they are physically capable under the “ stimulus ” supplied; and that after this the vessels next in size, because next in size, will expand and fill (partly at the expense of the fluid contained in the vessels which have' al- ready filled to their full extent, and partly at the expense of the fluid contained in the emptier ves- sels) until they can expand and fill no more. It follows, indeed, that the scene of expansion and filling will continually change to the vessels next in size, when the vessels already expanding are full, and that this transference of action will continue as long as the field of action consists of vessels of un-