A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson.

  • Farquharson, Robert, 1836-1918.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    142/320 (page 130)
    Constitutional Actions. Physiological. I. Nervous System. — 1. j5r«m.—Chloral produces an anaemic condition of the brain, and thus causes sleep by imi- tating the natural anatomical arrangement of that process. The resulting slumber begins very quickly after the dose is swallowed, it is usually sound and dreamless, and the patient wakes in seven or eight hom's, well refreshed, and without any marked feelings malaise or digestive disturbance. Ex- ceptions to this, however, have been observed, and in these chloral has caused preliminary excitement; but it is more than probable that an explanation may be found in the use of the impm-e specimens of the drug too often retailed. Lieb- reich believes that chloi-al exerts its hypnotic influence by undergoing transformation in the blood into chloroform and formic acid; but this is improbable for the following reasons: (1) The alkali of the blood is too feeble to liberate the chloroform, and the albumen Therapeutical. 1. Chloral is an excellent hypnotic, causing sound and refreshing sleep, without the digestive disturbance which usually follows the use of opium. It may be given in simple insomnia from mental woi-ry, overwork, or other causes, and it is a remedy of great value in all diseases in which dangerous depression is apt to follow the continuous want of sleep. Thus, in ty- phus, in delirium tremens, where it must be pushed boldly in conjunction with an absolute suspension of all al- cohol, in phthisis, acute mania, &c., we may prescribe it with much confidence of success. It has also been re- commended in France as an anaesthetic by subcutaneous in- jection ; from 2 to 4 drachms, thus made to enter the veins, being there supposed to yield chloi-oform, which then exerts its usual influence. There is no reason, however, to believe that anaesthesia thus produced is in any degree safer than the old mode of inhalation; and as