Preliminary observations on the pathology of sea-sickness / by J.A. Irwin.

  • Irwin, J. A. (John Arthur), 1853-1912.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Preliminary observations on the pathology of sea-sickness / by J.A. Irwin. 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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    The explanation of the well-known fact that sea^ sickness is least felt in the recumbent posture, with the head low and the feet towards the stern, is simply anatomical. Nature has made small pro* vision for the equilibration of the body in the horizontal or in any position much behind the perpendicular; hence we find the ampulse of all six canals are situated on their anterior extremities. In consequence of this construction when the body is recumbent and the head thrown back, the endo- lymph and otoliths gravitate towards the least sen- sitive part, and disturbance of them will not have the same tendency to alter pressure, or produce irritation within the ampulla?. The same explana- tion accounts for the backward movement being so- distressing, and in part for the unpleasantness of the downward, but for it there are other reasons. A strong confirmation of these views may be noticed in the extraordinary similarity between the symptoms of sea-sickness and those of labyrinthine vertigo—the pathology of which is now generally admitted to be a disturbance of pressure within the labyrinth. Space neither allows that I should describe the symptoms of sea-sickness, nor quote those of Meniere's disease. For the latter I refer to the accounts of Meniere, Trousseau, Hughlings- Jackson, Knapp, Charcot, and Burnett j and, with the exception of the deafness and tinnitus, which