An experimental inquiry into the pathology and treatment of asphyxia ... To which the Royal Humane Society awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal / [John Eric Erichsen].

  • Erichsen, John Eric, 1818-1896.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An experimental inquiry into the pathology and treatment of asphyxia ... To which the Royal Humane Society awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal / [John Eric Erichsen]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3. Upon the obstruction offered to the blood (propelled with dimi¬ nished force) by the refusal of the pulmonary veins and minute arteries to receive venous blood. Treatment.—We will now proceed to the consideration of some of the more important points connected with the treatment of asphyxia ; and in so doing it is not my intention to give a history of the subject, or even a resume of the principal plans that have been recommended for the recovery of persons labouring under the disease in question, but rather to confine the remarks that I have to make to the discus¬ sion of some of the points that are more particularly insisted upon by the Royal Humane Society, and to suggest some new or modified plans of treatment that will, I hope, be found to prove serviceable in particular cases of asphyxia. Before entering more at length upon this subject, it will be better to understand clearly the principal objects that ought to be fulfilled in the treatment of asphyxia. It has been shewn in the preceding pages that one of the chief causes of the arrest of the circulation in this disease is the obstacle offered to the passage of the blood through the lungs, consequent upon the cessation of its arterialization and the arrest of the respiratory movements ; and that the contractions of the heart cease, and the functions of the brain and nervous centres be¬ come suspended, in consequence of the circulation of unoxvgenized blood deficient in stimulating and nutritious properties through their tissues. Our first object should therefore be to arterialize the blood, and our second to restore or maintain the action of the heart, and thus cause the freshly aerated blood to circulate through the nervous centres, on which it acts as the most powerful stimulant, re-exciting the functions of the medulla oblongata and the nerves of respiration, and thus enabling the respiratory movements to be properly main¬ tained, and consequently the oxygenation of the blood to be naturally performed. . Such being the principal indications to be accomplished in the treatment of asphyxia generally, we will now proceed to the consider¬ ation of the most efficient mode of carrying them out in those cases of suspended animation that proceed from drowning, which, as being the most frequent, are the most important to be properly under¬ stood. As it is not necessary in every stage of asphyxia to have recourse to the same plan of treatment, I think that it will tend to place this subject in a clearer light if we divide the cases of this disease into the two following classes :— 1 st, Those in which the action of the heart is still continuing, howrever feebly. c2dy Those in which the action of the heart has ceased. It would be a matter of some importance in the treatment of asphyxia, if the average time at which the heart ceases to beat could