Observations on the medical and surgical agency of the air pump : read before the British Association in 1835 / by Sir James Murray.

  • Murray, John, 1809-1898.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the medical and surgical agency of the air pump : read before the British Association in 1835 / by Sir James Murray. 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 circulation to the branches, and avoid exciting increased action in the trunks, Repleting the vessels of an exterior part which has lost a portion of its vitality in consequence of the high irritation of an internal organ, is a great desideratum in practice, for it frequently happens, in such cases, that blisters will not vesicate until a nearer balance of the circulation is restored, and hence, in many instances, incalculable advantage is derived from dry-cupping over such a locality, rendering the capillaries of the skin turgid, and the subsequent vesication easily produced. I have frequently induced increased action in a semi-torpid surface, with a corresponding subsidence of the primary inflammation, merely by drawing the blood into the skin, and maintaining that determina- tion until the interior irritation had abated. There is no organ so much injured as the brain, by blisters applied over it, when the inflammation is acute, and not sufficiently subdued, by vigorous anti- phlogistic treatment; on the other hand, when con- gestion of the brain depends on atony, then power- ful revulsives over the scalp, act directly through the medium of the nerves, as well as of the anastomo- sing and perforating vessels, in determining a new condition, calculated to unload them. In either of these cases, the abstraction of the blood to the extremities, diminishes the congestion, whether it arise from active surcharge of the tissues,