The influence of cocaine, atropine, and caffeine on the heart and bloodvessels / by H.G. Beyer.

  • Beyer, Henry Gustav, 1850-1918.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of cocaine, atropine, and caffeine on the heart and bloodvessels / by H.G. Beyer. 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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    Extracted from the American Journal^ the M[e3ical Sciences for July, 1885.'' By H. G. BEYER, M.D., M.R.C.S., Passed Assistant Surgeon U. S. N., Honorary Curator, Section Mat. Medica, U. S. National Museum. There are few known drugs that have, within such a short space of time, risen from comparative obscurity to such practical as well as theo- retical importance as cocaine. Its great value as a local ansesthetic, and its wide application in all the branches of medicine and surgery, together with our comparative ignorance in regard to many points of its action on the animal organism, is perhaps quite sufficient argument in favor of any attempt calculated to throw more light on the subject. The fact that cocaine, applied to mucous surfaces, will produce tempo- rary localized anesthesia being now firmly established and generally ac- cepted, and, it being furthermore well recognized that it also produces dilatation of the pupil, the important question now arises how all this is done, and what is the mechanism of the production of these two conditions. This is a problem which is as yet far from being solved. When we reflect that the experimental evidence, which so far has been adduced in explanation of the phenomenon of pupillary dilatation produced by atropine and that of pupillary contraction by opium, two such long and well-known drugs, is as yet far from being considered as generally satis- factory, we may perhaps be much better able to realize also the difficulty which must necessarily be in the way of solving a similar problem with regard to cocaine. It may require the work of many intelligent physiolo-