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EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES
ON THE INFLUENCE OF
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
UPON THE
BLOOD IN THE VEINS,
Sfc. Sfc. 8fc.
*■
Fig- 7
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EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCHES
ON THE INFLUENCE EXEBCISED BY
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
UPON THE
PROGRESSION OF THE BLOOD IN THE VEINS,
UPON THAT FUNCTION CALLED
ABSORPTION,
THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF THE SYMPTOMS CAUSED BY THE BITES
RABID OR VENOMOUS ANIMALS.
(DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO HIS MAJESTY.)
AN APPENDIX,
CONTAINING/
IGINAL REPORTS OF BARON CUVIER AND OF PROFESSORS DUMERIL
AND LAENNEC, TO THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, AND TO THE
ROYAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE OF PARIS, &c. &c.
DAVID BARRY, M.D.
KNIGHT OF THE OBDEB OF THE TOWEB AND SWOBD, MEMBEB OF THE BOYAL COLLEGE OF
PHYSICIANS IN LONDON, FIBST SUBGEON TO THE PORTUGUESE ABMY,
SUBGEON TO THE FORCES, SfC. fyC.
" Habemus etiam et vivaria pro bestiis et avibus omnigenis, —
Experimentum etiam sumimus super illas venenorum omnium
et antidotorum— Ut corpori bumano melius caveamus." —
Bacon. Nova Atlantis.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THOMAS AND GEORGE UNDERWOOD,
32, FLEET-STREET.
MDCCCXXVL
CONTENTS.
Page
Dedication to the King . . . vii
Preface . . . . . ix
PART I.
Memoir-on the Motion of the Blood in the Veins . 1
Supplement to Memoir . . . .41
Translation of Baron Cuvier's and Professor Dumeril's
Report on the original Memoir . .61
PART II.
Essay on Absorption . . . .75
Chap. 1. Short History of the Ancient and Modern
Theories of External Absorption — Imbibition — Com-
parison of the Ancient and Modern Modes of treat-
ing Poisoned Wounds.— Influence of these Theories
upon Practice . . . . .75
Chap. 2. Can Absorption, strictly speaking, be called a
Vital Function ? — Definition of Absorption — Why it
cannot take place in Vacuo- — Its Causes — Proofs that
Absorption of Poisons does not take place in Vacuo 94
Chap. 3. Experiments upon External Absorption — Re-
marks by M. Andral — Conclusions of M. Laennec's
Report. . . . . . 103
Chap. 4. Experiments upon the Bite of the Viper . 121
Chap. 5. Comparative Absorbing Powers of the Tissues.
— Morbid Poisons — Contagion and Infection . 138
Chap. 6. Application of the foregoing Principles and
Experiments to Practice in the Treatment of Poi-
soned Wounds . . . .147
VI CONTENTS.
APPENDIX.
No. I. M. Legallois's Report of the Experiments on the
Venous Circulation, made at the Faculte de Mede-
cine ...... 163
No. 2. Letter addressed to Dr. Barry by M. Girard, Di-
rector of the Veterinary School at Alfort . . 165
No. 3. Report made to the Institute of Prance by Baron
Cuvier and Professor Dumeril, upon the Memoir
on the Venous Circulation . . .160
No. 4. Extract from the Report presented to the Aca-
d£mie de M^decine, by Professor Laennec, upon the
Experiments connected with External Absoi'ption,
and Traumatic Poisoning . . .174
DEDICATION.
TO THE KINGS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
SlitE,
If to the proud consciousness of being one of that
people which your Majesty's wisdom has rendered so pre-
eminent in Arts, in Arms, and in Commerce; the work
now humbly offered to your Most Gracious Majesty's
protection, shall entitle its author to add that of having
diminished the amount of human evils by increasing the
stock of human knowledge, the highest ambition will be
gratified, and the utmost labour rewarded of,
Sire,
Your Majesty's
Most humble Servant,
And dutiful Subject,
DAVID BARRY,
Surgeon to Your Majesty's Forces,
PREFACE.
The first of the two Essays contained in this
volume is composed from Notes of a Memoir
On the Motion of the Blood in the Veins, which I
had the honour of reading before the Academy of
Sciences at Paris, on the 8th of June, 1825 — and
to it is annexed a translation of the Report made
to the Institute of France, by Baron Cuvier and
Professor Dumeril, who were appointed to witness
a repetition of the experiments, and to examine
the said Memoir.
The Second Essay, a corollary to the first, had
for its basis a short note read by me before the
French Academy of Medicine, on the subject of
External Absorption.
And the x4ippendix contains copies of certain
original documents referred to in the preceding
pages.
I feel that it would be quite impossible for me
to give an adequate notion of the liberality and
disinterested kindness with which the leading:
men of science in Paris received my communica-
tions, or of the facilities which they afforded me
not only to bring them forward, but to prosecute
X PREFACE.
and repeat the inquiries and experiments neces-
sary to their elucidation.
After I had read the first Memoir, Professor
Laennec procured for me the permission, as well
as the entire means, to repeat my experiments
at the School of Medicine. In him I found the
assistance of consummate anatomical and physio-
logical science, with the high-minded zeal of libe-
ral friendship.
M. Dumeril also, in the handsomest manner,
furnished me with the means of again repeating
the experiments in presence of himself, the Baron
Cuvier, Professors Laennec, Cruvelhier, Billery,
Breschet, Edwards, and many other distinguished
persons.
Baron Cuvier, to the honour he conferred upon
me by being present at my experiments, gene-
rously added that of placing at my disposal every
thing necessary to prosecute my investigations at
the Royal Garden of Plants, an establishment
which has already ensured with posterity immor-
tal honour to him, and to the nation of which he
is so distinguished an ornament.
The letter of M. Girard*, director of the Ve-
terinary School at Alfort, will show with what
noble zeal the science of physiology is cultivated
in France. In England, on the contrary, an out-
cry has been raised of late, not entirely unsup-
* See Appendix, No II.
PREFACE, XI
ported by some leading professional men, against
every thing like inquiry, having for its basis
direct experiment upon living animals. Yet the little
that we know of the laws of life is drawn from
this source alone.
The examination of a quiescent machine can
only suggest the use of its parts when they were
all in movement. Well-directed experiment upon
these same parts, actively employed in fulfilling
their various functions, either confirms the sug-
gestion, giving it the validity of a law, or at
once destroys the whole fabric of a baseless
theory.
" Unicimi smpe experimentum, integrorum annorum
laboriosa figmenta refatavit *."
The wisest and the most virtuous men of the
ages they lived in spent a large portion of their
time in making experiments upon living animals.
Those of Harvey were honoured by the presence
of his sovereign, who, by that act alone, would
have been entitled to a share of the immortality
gained by the illustrious discoverer of the circu-
lation f.
Those who have stated that Harvey made but
few experiments, and that to these few we owe
* Haller, Tom. i. Pr?ef.
t " In jugulari vena interna denudata damae vivas (coram
multis nobilibus, et rege serenissimo domino meo, assistentibus)
per medium divisa et abrupta," &c. — Hakvey, De Circ.
Sang.
Xll PREFACE.
but little, should have read his works. In these
they would have learned, that an unlimited supply
of animals was placed at his disposal, by the
enlightened prince to whom he was physician.
His own words are singularly applicable to these
candidates for unscientific popularity, — " Qui nihil
nisi homines secant."
Bacon (Lord Verulam), whose stupendous
powers of mind have never, perhaps, been equal-
led, in drawing a picture of what an institution
or university ought to be, in order to afford the
fullest opportunities for acquiring useful and ex-
alted knowledge, puts the following words into
the mouth of one of the patres domus Salamonis, in
his Nova Atlantis.
" Habemus etiam septa et vivaria pro bestiis et
avibus omnigenis, quibus, non tam propter novita-
tem et raritatem, quam ad dissectiones et experi-
menta anatomica utimur ; ut ab iis, quid fieri
possit circa corpus humanum lucem accipiamus.
Veluti vitse, in iis continuationem, licet nonnullse
partes quas vos pro vitalibus habetis perierint,
aut extracts fuerint. Resuscitationem nonnullo-
rum, quae specie tenus, mortuse erant. Experi-
mentum etiam sumimus super illas, venenorum
omnium et antidotorum, et aliorum medicamento-
rum, tam chirurgicorum, quam medicinalium, ut
corpori humano melius caveamus."
Haller, who was a senator and a minister in his
native country, and not less remarkable for the
PREFACE. Xlll
benevolence and integrity of his character, than
for his profound researches into the laws of life,
says, in the preface to his great work on Physio-
logy, " Dissecanda ergo animalia, verum minime
sufficerit cadavera dissecuisse, viva incidisse ne-
cesse est. A cadavere motus abest, omnem ergo
motum in vivo animale speculari oportet ; sed in
motu animati corporis interno et externo, tota
physiologia versatur. Ergo ad sanguinis circui-
tum, ad ejus subtiliores motus perspiciendos, ad
respirationem, ad intestinorum reptatum, ad chyli
iter intelligendum, absque vivorum animantium
strage, nihil omnino profici potest."
They who inveigh most loudly against experi-
ments upon living animals, and who affect an
excess of sensibility, have never made any expe-
riments themselves. They are contented with
the exposition of what they, in their wisdom, sup-
pose nature ought to do, instead of investigating
what she actually does.
Others talk of needless cruelty. If any useful
knowledge is to be obtained by an experiment,
none of the means necessary to arrive at this
knowledge can be needless, and none else can be
adopted without defeating the purpose aimed at ;
therefore, in useful experiments, there never is
needless cruelty, or, in other words, unnecessary
pain inflicted.
When medical men are praised at public meet-
ings, and their letters there read with applause,
XIV PREFACE.
in which they profess the determination, neither
to open the living book of animal nature them-
selves, nor permit it to be opened by the youth
committed to their charge, our best feelings are
allowed to take a very wrong direction. There
are those, however, who have had the candour
and the honesty to assert in the face of this
vulgar clamour, that we have as good a right
to make animal life subservient to the in-
crease of our useful knowledge, as of our bodily
strength and amusements. This is plain common
sense, and must in the end prevail. One word
as to the essays and experiments.
A vague unauthenticated notion, that the re-
turn of the black blood to the heart is, in some
undefined way, influenced by suction, may be
traced as far back as the time of Harvey. Haller,
and many others also, noticed a marked coinci-
dence between the respiratory movements of the
thorax in the warm-blooded mammalia, and the
motion of their venous blood. But the mecha-
nism was never pointed out, by which nature, in
these animals, applies the mighty agency of at-
mospheric pressure to the veins, and connects, as
cause and effect, the expansion of the chest with
the afflux of the centriptal fluids to the heart. The
experiments, therefore, that demonstrate this me-
chanism, and supply these important desiderata
in physiology, must be entitled to the meed of
novelty, along with whatever other merits they
may possess.
PREFACE. XV
The first experiment, p. 10, however nearly it
might have been approached, was never made ;
that upon the pericardium, p. 19, was never even
imagined by any man living or dead, before me.
Whether my conclusions be just or new must be
soon decided — in the mean time, as the most in-
tense power of the reasoning faculties of man can
never arrive at a discovery so perfectly original, as
to be entirely unconnected with every thing that
was known or suggested before, I shall reply to
those who deny the originality of my researches
in the words of the great Haller.
" Praeterea aequo animo oportet expendisse,
non eum verum inventorem esse, cui vaga aliqua
cogitatio elapsa est, in nullo fundata experimento,
sed eum omnino earn laudem mereri, qui verum
ex suis fontibus, per sua pericula, suasque medi-
tationes, eruerit, et adeo firmis rationibus stabili-
verit, ut veri cupidos convincerit." — Haller, torn,
i. lib. 3.
D. Barry.
Paris, March 24, 1826.
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PART I.
MEMOIR ON THE MOTION OF THE BLOOD IN
THE VEINS.
Read by the Author, before the Academy of Sciences, on
the 8th of June, 1825, at the Institute of France.
OBJECT OF THE MEMOIR.
The object of the following Memoir, is to demon-
strate by proofs, drawn from the anatomical struc-
ture of animals aad from direct experiment,
First. The powers by which the blood is pro-
pelled through the veins to the heart.
Secondly. The comparative velocity with which
it is moved through the veins, and through the
arteries.
Thirdly. That the constant supply of blood to
the heart, cannot depend solely upon the causes
to which it has been hitherto ascribed.
B
<£ ON THE MOTION OF THE
What is the amount of all that has been hitherto proved,
relative to the Circulation of the Blood ?
We owe to the sagacity of the immortal Harvey
our knowledge of this incontrovertible fact, that
the blood in the living animal is in constant circu-
lation from the ventricles through the arteries and
veins, to the heart again, where it is to receive a
fresh impulse.
Harvey not having been able, either by dissec-
tion or experiment, to discover any other power
actively and constantly employed in propelling
the blood along this course, assigned the whole
task to the heart alone. The reasonings and the
experiments which he adduced in illustration of
this doctrine, clearly prove that the circulating
current takes the direction which he had already
pointed out, but certainly do not rigorously de-
monstrate that the heart is the sole impellent
power.
Later physiologists have done but little to shew
either the truth or the error of Harvey's asser-
tions. They have merely admitted a few second-
ary sources of impulse to the blood ; such as —
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 6
1. The contractile power of the arteries, whether
the effect of muscular or elastic fibres. 2. The
insensible contraction of the capillaries, supposed
to be independent of the heart. 3. The action
of the veins themselves upon their contents.
4. The pressure of muscles of voluntary and
involuntary motion.
Of these supposed powers* some are so little
susceptible of being demonstrated by direct ex-
periment, others must be so uncertain in their
operation, and the theories which they have been
brought to support are so opposed to each other,
that the evidence against is, a priori, nearly as
strong as that in favour of their existence.
The supposition that the cavities of the heart
possess the power of dilating themselves, and
therefore of acting alternately as suction and forc-
ing-pumps, although adopted by some existing
physiologists, has hitherto derived but little sup-
port either from anatomy or experiment. * This
opinion was too trite, even in the days of Harvey,
* " Neque verum est similiter quod vulgo creditur, cor, ullo
suo motu aut distensione, sanguinem in ventricuiis attrahere,
dura enim movetur expellit, &c, — Harvey de Motu Cordis, cap . ii.
B 2
4 ON THE MOTION OF THE
to merit serious refutation. Neither the auricle
nor the ventricle appears to be furnished with
any intelligible muscular apparatus, by which
either can accomplish its own dilatation. Every
thing we find in them seems evidently calculated
to favour their contraction.
The doctrine of the active resiliency of the
lungs, tending constantly to leave a vacuum be-
tween their surface and the parietes of the thorax,
and thereby assisting to bring uninterrupted at-
mospheric pressure upon the blood in the veins,
was, I believe, first broached by Dr. Carson, of
Liverpool, in 1815. Being, however, purely theo-
retical, and unsupported by direct experiment,
it seems, notwithstanding its ingenuity, to have
made but little impression, for although published
now ten years, I do not find it alluded to in the
lectures or the writings of the French physiolo-
gists.
The amount, then, of all that has been hitherto
proved, and of which there is any thing like
material evidence relative to the circulation of
the blood, may be found in this short sentence,
written nearly two hundred years ago.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 5
" Necessarium est concludere,circulari quodam motn,
in circuitu agitari in cmimalibus sanguinem, et esse in
perpetuo motu, et hanc esse actionem sive functionem
cordis, quam yulsu peragit." — Harvey, De Motu
Cordis, cap. xiv.
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE.
Arguments drawn from Anatomy.
I had long remarked in every thing I heard
or read on the circulation of the blood, that the
pressure of the atmosphere was either entirely
left out in the enumeration of its causes, or con
sidered as merely a secondary agent. This ap-
peared to me the more extraordinary, from the
.effects of pressure being so striking, when acting
upon liquids moving in tubes. Harvey does not
even allude to such a cause; and Haller, in speak-
ing of the pulmonary circulation says, that * the
pressure of the air may be passed over in silence.
It seemed to me, however, impossible, that the
alternate expansion and contraction of the thoracic
cavities should not affect the contents of the
* Ut pressio aeris pro nulla potest haberi. (Haller, loco citato.)
O ON THE MOTION OF THE
great veins opening into them, in the same man-
ner as the expansion of a pair of bellows would
the contents of flexible tubes, in communication
with their cavities ; I reasoned thus : —
The right and left cavities of the thorax have
within them each a lung or bag, divided into a
greater or lesser number of distensible cells, com-
municating with one another, and with a common
tube, the trachea. When the chest is enlarged
by the act of inspiration, air rushes in through this
tube, to distend the air-cells, and force them to
occupy that space, in which the expanding pari-
etes of the thorax tend to leave a vacuum. But
as it is evident that the air would follow the ex-
panding sides of the chest much more readily, if
there were no cells to be distended, and as it is
an unalterable law, that all liquids in communi-
cation with an enlarging cavity will be pressed
towards it, if exposed at the same time to atmo-
spheric influence ; it became presumable that
blood would be forced into the thorax through
the cavse during inspiration.
Having once caught this view of the part which
respiration might probably bear in the circula-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 7
tion, particularly of the venous blood, several
known facts presented themselves in support of
its correctness, viz., the swelling of the external
jugular veins during expiration, and their imme-
diate collapse upon inspiration. The checking of
certain haemorrhages by forced inspirations ; the
fatal accidents that have been known to follow
the opening or the dividing large veins, and above
all, the situation of the heart itself, placed in the
centre of the chest in a bag, at all times too large
for its volume, and which seems not only pro-
tected from direct atmospheric pressure, but is
probably enlarged in all its diameters by the act
of inspiration.
Upon turning my attention more particularly
to the anatomy of the thoracic viscera, I was
struck with the analogy which .1 thought was
observable between the mechanism of the heart,
pericardium, and mediastinal pleura?, as resem-
bling a pair of bellows, and that of either lung
within its proper cavity, compared to the same
instrument.
The situation of the fibrous bag of the peri-
cardium in the human subject, and the covering
which its lateral surfaces receive from the medi-
8
ON THE MOTION OF THE
astinal pleurae, reflected over them from the roots
of the lungs behind, and from the sternum and
ribs before, are well known to all anatomists.
When the lungs are expanded, their surface is
necessarily enlarged. When the ribs carry
forward the sternum, and when the diaphragm
presses down the abdominal viscera, the internal
surface of the thorax is also enlarged ; conse-
quently the pleurae covering these surfaces is
put upon the stretch, and that portion covering
the pericardium on either side is pulled upon at
its margins on both sides, in the directions best
calculated, not only to protect the fibrous bag
from pressure, but to enlarge its cavity throughout.
The motion of the sternum during inspiration,
tends to bring the anterior surface of the pericar-
dium forwards and upwards. The synchronous
movement of the diaphragm tends to enlarge it
downwards,- and to complete the analogy. As
each lung is furnished with a pipe, through which
it receives and discharges air, so is the heart,
with its receiving pipes (the veins), and its dis-
charging pipes (the arteries), through which it
receives and discharges blood.
But as the aorta, the great discharging pipe of
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 9
the heart, is equally employed during both stages
of respiration in sending blood out of the thorax,
it seemed probable (if my reasoning with regard
to the effect of inspiration upon the blood of the
cavae were well founded,) that enough of blood
should be brought into the chest during its ex-
pansion alone, to supply the discharging tubes
during a whole act of respiration. Thus the ne-
cessity of a reservoir became evident, into which
this blood might be drawn by the expansion of
the three thoracic bellows. Having, by these argu-
ments and others now unnecessary to be recapi-
tulated, brought my hypotheses thus far, I came
to the following presumptive conclusions.
1. That a liquid such as water in an open
vessel, being by means of a tube placed in direct
communication with the cavity of one of the great
veins within the thorax of a living animal, would
be forced by atmospheric pressure to rise in the
tube, and that the motion of the liquid within the
tube would be regulated by the respiratory
movements of the animal.
2. That the same phenomena would be exhibited
by establishing the same communication between
10 ON THE MOTION OP THE
the liquid and any of the cavities around the
vein.
The consideration of the pulmonary venous
circulation I deferred altogether, until I should
have ascertained by experiment, whether my
theory with regard to the effect of atmospheric
pressure upon the blood of the cavse were likely
to prove correct. I accordingly planned and ex-
ecuted the following experiment.
First Experiment.
Having first ascertained upon the dead horse,
that a tube of proper size and length * might be
readily introduced down the jugular vein, as far
as the anterior cava, I proceeded thus — ■
On the 16th October, 1824, I selected a horse
condemned to be destroyed on account of an in-
curably diseased hoof, but sound in every other
respect. The animal having been thrown upon
his right side, I laid bare his left jugular vein,
tied it below its middle, and about an inch below
the ligature introduced into its cavity, in a direc-
tion towards the heart, a large-sized flexible ca-
theter, having a spiral glass tube fitted into its
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 11
outer end*. The rounded point of the catheter
was cut off above the lateral openings. The dia-
meter of its bore was about te of an inch, its
length 101 inches. The diameter of the spiral
tube at A. was i of an inch, at C. it was some-
thing less. The length from B. to C. four inches.
When the horse was thrown, his breathing be-
came almost entirely thoracic ; the rising and
falling of his ribs could be readily and distinctly
counted. The respiration was also audible. The
catheter having been pushed towards the heart
as far as it would go, a ligature, which had been
passed under the vein a little below the opening
made to admit the catheter, was firmly knotted
round both.
The point C. of the spiral tube, over which I
had hitherto held my finger, was now immersed
in a cup of water deeply coloured by a solution
of common Prussian blue. The moment that I
removed my finger, the blue liquid rose through
the spiral, and flowed rapidly towards the heart.
The sun happening at the moment to shine
* Plate, Fig. 1.
12 ON THE MOTION OF THE
strongly on the tube, I saw, in the most satisfac-
tory manner, the undissolved particles of blue
pass up from the cup and round the spiral during
inspiration, and halt or return slowly towards the
cup during expiration. Not a drop of blood was
seen to enter the tube, but bubbles of air some-
times appeared upon the surface of the liquid in
the cup during expiration. The breathing being
audible, allowed me to keep my eye steadily
fixed upon the motion of the liquid, and to ascer-
tain, beyond all possibility of deception, that this
motion was entirely dependent upon the move-
ments of respiration. •
My very ingenious friend, Dr. Macann, to
whose suggestions and assistance I am largely
indebted, being stationed on the opposite side of
the horse's neck, where he had not so good a
view of the tube, by placing himself close to me,
soon became fully convinced that the blue liquid
moved upwards through the spiral in exact cor-
respondence with the inspirations, and halted or
returned towards the cup with the expirations.
To vary the proofs of this wonderful coinci-
dence between the movements of the blue liquid
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 13
in the tube and the respiration of the animal, I
withdrew the point C. from the liquid in the cup
for a moment during inspiration, so as to admit
one or two bubbles of air, and returned it again
immediately. A space more or less extensive of
the tube became thus transparent. Upon the
next inspiration these bubbles were forced round
the spiral with considerable velocity, and the
whole tube again became uniformly blue by the
ascent of more liquid from the cup. This part
of the experiment, several times repeated, invari-
ably afforded the same results.
A considerable quantity of cold water and also
of air had now been forced into the vein and
thence to the heart. The animal gave strong
indications of suffering, and as the fact that in-
spiration produces a relative vacuum within or
around the anterior cava was considered as fully
established, the experiment was discontinued. I
forgot to mention that towards the latter part of
the experiment, when the animal's respiration
became hurried and irregular, blood appeared in
the tube on two or three occasions during expira-
tion. The next inspiration, however, invariably
restored the blue liquid to its place.
14 ON THE MOTION OP THE
During the various trials and repetitions of this
experiment which I made upon horses. I had oc-
casion to remark, 1. That when the animal was
standing, although the coloured liquid invariably
rose in the tube, atmospheric pressure was never
so distinctly marked as when he was prostrate.
This I proved by experimenting upon the same
animal in both positions,
2. That the connexion between the motions
of the liquid in the tube and the respiration can-
not be satisfactorily observed while the horse is
standing, because his breathing when in the erect
posture, and at rest, is scarcely, if a]t all, per-
ceptible.
3. That when the respiration became hur-
ried from whatever cause, or when it was em-
barrassed by disease, there was frequent regur-
gitation of blood through the tube, but never once
did this occur except at the moment of expiration,
and never under any circumstance did the liquid
ascend in the tube, except at the moment of in-
spiration. This experiment, repeated upon the
anterior and posterior cava? of dogs, afforded
similar results.
Here it is essential to remark, that if the com-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 15
municating tube be introduced into the femoral
vein of a dog or horse, and pushed no further to-
wards the heart, inspiration will produce no effect
upon the liquid in the cup, because the relative
vacuum of the thorax can be filled up from the
other veins of the animal's body, which will re-
quire a weight of atmospheric pressure to send
forward their contents, less than would be neces-
sary to force up the blue liquid, by the sum of all
the secondary powers, such as contractility, vis
a tergo, fyc. The influence of the atmosphere
invariably moves that first which requires the
least pressure.
Considering the correctness of my first pre-
sumptive conclusion to be sufficiently established,
I proceeded to put the second to the test, by the
following experiment, calculated to ascertain the
effect which a direct communication with the
thoracic cavities around the cava? would have
upon a liquid, circumstanced as in the last ex-
periment.
16
ON THE MOTION OF THE
Second Experiment.
I introduced into the thorax of a dog near the
median line and on each side of the posterior
extremity of the sternum, a metallic tube, pointed
like a writing-pen. The animal being placed
upon his back the tubes were directed down-
wards and forwards parallel to the mediastinal
pleurae, which in the dog, in this position, suspend
the pericardium from the sternum. To the ex-
ternal extremity of each tube was attached a small
caoutchouc bag filled with a composition of lard
and wax, and pierced at its bottom by a small hole.
As soon as the point of the tube had penetrated
the pleura, I took a small flexible catheter, having
at one end the barrel of a quill, in the side of
which I had made a cut to act as a valve, opening
readily from within outwards, and shutting in the
contrary direction by its natural elasticity. The
catheter thus armed, I passed into the hole in the
caoutchouc bag, through the metal tube and into
the chest. The little bag was attached to the
margins of the wound by suture. This being
done on both sides of the sternum, I next fitted
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 17
to the outer end of each catheter which had been
hitherto plugged, a spiral glass-tube*, one end
of which was already immersed in a coloured
liquid. The communication being thus complete
on both sides, the liquid rose rapidly through the
spirals and flowed into the chest during inspira-
tion, and remained stationary or fell during ex-
piration. The movements of the liquid in the
tubes were so regular, and so completely depend-
ant upon the respiratory movements of the
animal, that the one might be counted whilst ob-
serving the other. During inspiration I admitted
into the glass-tube bubbles of air and small por-
tions of the blue water alternately, so as to make
the ascending column resemble a string of coloured
beads, which played up and down through the
spirals, particularly towards the latter part of the
experiment, marking in a beautiful and striking
manner the stages of the animal's respiration.
Two other metallic tubes, similar to those al-
ready described, were passed into the chest at
two distant points, with the intention that the
* See Fig. 1.
18
ON THE MOTION OF THE
openings of the catheters should be placed be-
tween the pleura costalis and the lung on either
side; but having operated too near the diaphragm,
one of the catheters passed between it and the
stomach and liver, the other between it and the
posterior surface of the lung. No motion what-
ever was observed in the liquid communicating
with the abdomen, whilst that of the liquid com-
municating with the anterior surface of the dia-
phragm was precisely similar to the movements
noticed in the other tubes.
Before the dog was destroyed, a stop-cock was
fitted into his trachea, so as to command his re-
spiration. When the stop-cock was shut, and the
animal made powerful efforts to inspire, the blue
liquid flowed upwards through the spirals with
much greater force and rapidity than when the
passage of the air through the windpipe was un-
obstructed. The ends of the two catheters that
had been first introduced were found, when the
body was opened, one on each side of the peri-
cardium, between it and the concave surface of
the lung, which had not suffered the slightest
injury.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 19
Third Experiment.
A similar communication still remained to be
established with the bag of the pericardium, but
hitherto in all the trials which I had made upon
the dog the cavities of the heart had been pene-
trated, and the results of the experiments thus
rendered inexact. The long and delicate con-
nexion between the pericardium and sternum in
this animal, added much to the other difficulties.
The pericardium of the horse I found to be the
most favourably circumstanced for my experi-
ments. In this animal it is attached to the
periosteum of the upper surface of the sternum
from the fourth rib backwards, extending its
adhesion posteriorly to the base of the xyphoid
cartilage, from whence it turns sharply upwards
and forwards behind the heart to be attached to the
lower surface of the posterior pulmonary veins.
By dissecting up the point of the xyphoid I was
able to pass a pointed tube along its upper sur-
face, through the lower margin of the diaphragm,
and into the pericardium at its posterior and in-
C 2
20 ON THE MOTION OF THE
ferior angle, without penetrating the peritoneum.
The tube was armed with a caoutchouc bag as
in the last experiment. Through this bag I
passed a flexible catheter into the tube nearly to
its point. Thus when the pericardium was pene-
trated, the catheter could be pushed in imme-
diately, and to any length, so as to prevent the
heart from being wounded by beating against the
point of the tube.
In all the cases in which I succeeded in esta-
blishing a communication between the bag of the
pericardium exclusively and a coloured liquid,
the fluid rose in the tube as rapidly as in the for-
mer experiments, and, in all but one, its motion
upwards was governed by the animal's inspira-
tions. In all, however, with the exception of this
single case, although the liquid invariably halted
or descended during expiration, there was an
oscillation of the fluid upwards, which seemed
independent of respiration, but could not be
observed during inspiration, because then it
was confounded with the general motion of the
liquid upwards. This third movement was ac-
knowledged by my friend Mr. Bennett, an anato-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 21
•
mist and physiologist, as distinguished as he is
modest.
In the case of exception, the horse was in the
last stage of exhaustion. The pulsation of none
of his arteries could be felt, and the liquid eon-
$.
tinued to flow upwards from the beginning to the
end of the experiment, without any intermission,
and this whether he was placed upon his back or
his side.
When either of the ventricles was penetrated —
an accident which frequently happened, as long as
the blood was allowed to flow through the tube —
the animal did not seem likely to perish sooner
than he would have done by any other haemorr-
hage of the same amount ; but when the effusion
took place within the pericardium, he invariably
died when the bag was filled to its utmost extent.
In these cases the heart was found compressed,
and smaller than natural, in the midst of an im-
mense coagulum.
Professor Coleman was kind enough to afford
me an opportunity of repeating the first and third
experiments at the Veterinary College on Friday,
the 10th February, 1826. There were present,
2£ ON THE MOTION OF THE
besides the Professor and his numerous and
respectable class, Mr. Sewel, Dr. Bostock,
Mr. Wardrop, Mr. Broughton, Dr. Macann, and
many other highly distinguished men.
The subject was a donkey. All expressed their
satisfaction at the entire success of the experi-
ments, but particularly that upon the pericar-
dium. The tube was introduced into the cavity
of this bag without inflicting the slightest injury
upon the heart. The liquid was taken up with
wonderful rapidity, and in perfect accordance
with the dilatation of the thoracic cavities during
inspiration.
Upon opening the animal, the flexible tube was
seen projecting some inches into the bag of the
pericardium, in the depending" portion of which
was found a considerable quantity of the liquid
used in the experiment.
PULMONARY VENOUS CIRCULATION.
Before I state the inferences which appear to
me deducible from the facts already recorded, I
shall say a few words on the motion of the blood
in the veins of the lungs.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 23
Since it is evident that the blood sent into the
aorta cannot arrive through any other channel
than the pulmonary veins, it will not be un-
reasonable to conclude, either that the lungs
must be equally pervious to the blood of the
right heart during all the stages of respiration, or,
that if they are not so, there must be a reservoir
from which the left heart can be supplied during
the period when they are least pervious.
The lungs themselves are placed within two ca-
vities, which, as we have just seen, are in a state
of tendency towards the formation of a vacuum
during the act of inspiration, and therefore the
pulmonary veins would, at first sight, appear to
be all equally exempt from pressure in every part
of the thorax, at the moment of its expansion.
A more attentive examination, however, will shew,
that nature has ensured, by a beautiful and simple
mechanism, as constant and as ample a supply to
the left heart, as she has to the right, and by the
same means ; w%., atmospheric pressure. I shall
take the thorax of the horse as an example to
illustrate the pulmonary venous circulation in the
warm-blooded mammalia.
24 ON THE MOTION OF THE
In the horse, the posterior cava quits the spine
as soon as it arrives at the crus of the diaphragm ;
it then runs along this muscle for a considerable
distance, until it arrives opposite the base of the
heart, when it passes into the thorax like a rope
across a room, unconnected with every thing for
five or six inches of its length, except with the
thin, gauze-like membrane which extends from
the right side of the pericardium to the dia-
phragm, and which seems to hang from the outer
and upper side of the thoracic cava like a curtain.
As this membrane conducts the phrenic nerve to
its destination, I shall take the liberty of calling
it the phrenic curtain, not being aware of any
other name by which it may be distinguished.
The two great posterior, or right and left pul-
monary veins form, by their early confluence in
the right cavity of the thorax, behind the peri-
cardium, a capacious reservoir, which is still fur-
ther enlarged by the junction to its left side more
anteriorly of the two common trunks of the prin-
cipal middle left pulmonary veins.
There is a deep notch lined by pleura made
into the inner face of the great right lung from
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 25
before backwards, almost to its root. The irre-
gularly pyramidal slice of lung thus half-de-
tached from, but still adhering by its base to the
parent-lobe, is the middle lung of quadrupeds.
It is thrust upwards and to the left of the loose
posterior cava, but without forming the slightest
adhesion to this vessel. In this situation, then,
it would hang across the vein, were not a portion
of its upper, or rather left, surface pasted up to
the floor of the great reservoir just mentioned,
and to some inches of the bevelled edge of the
left lung, each preserving its proper pleura. The
point of this little lung, with all its lower sides
and angles, are free. This connexion between
the middle lung and the roots of the posterior
pulmonary veins is not the only one. Two, three,
or more veins coming from the left superior ante-
rior angle of the middle lung open their trumpet-
shaped-mouths into the floor of the reservoir pre-
cisely at the three points best calculated to pull
it downwards and to the right, when the middle
lobe, filled by inspiration, is strained towards its'
parent lung by the pleura lining the notch. . The
anterior, the largest of these connecting veins,
26 ON THE MOTION OF THE
is inserted into the centre of the common trunk
of the two middle veins already mentioned. The
second, into the centre of the conflux of this
trunk, with the great left posterior vein. The
third, (in the lung now before me) to the left of
the centre of the conflux of this last with the
right posterior vein. Thus, if the middle lung-
were pulled down from its adhesions to the left
of the cava, and at the same time revolved upon
its base towards its parent lobe, its veins pro-
longed would form arcs of that angle, of which
the right phrenic curtain and the floor of the
reservoir would represent the sides. When
the horse's lungs are artificially inflated, the
middle lobe makes precisely the movement de-
scribed.
In this arrangement there are the following re-
markable circumstances : 1st. The principal veins
of the left lung enter the right thorax. 2d. The
veins of the middle lung cross the largest vein of
the right lobe, to empty themselves into a particu-
lar point of the conflux of the left pulmonary
veins. 3d. The veins of the middle lung empty
themselves at one of its extremities, instead of at
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 27
its root. The purpose of this mechanism I illus-
trated in the following manner : —
Fourth Experiment.
After having laid bare about half an inch of the
lower surface of the left posterior pulmonary vein,
I introduced into its cavity, towards the heart,
the end A of the tube (fig. 1.), tying the vessel
round it. The point C was immersed in a glass
of red wine and water. By pulling gently upon
the apex of the middle lung, in the direction in
which it would move when inflated, the coloured
liquid rose with such force, that it flowed abund-
antly into the reservoir. When I ceased to pull,
the liquid ceased to flow. When I pulled the lung
horizontally towards the left, the coloured water
seemed rather inclined to return towards the
glass. When I pulled horizontally towards the
right, the liquid rose, but the more the middle
lung was lifted from its attachments, the more
rapidly the liquid flowed.
The right posterior pulmonary vein, and right
side of the great reservoir, have no vein entering
28 ON THE MOTION OF THE
them from the middle lung, because the root of
the posterior cava is extensively attached to them
a little farther forward.
The diaphragm in its retrograde descent pulls
upon the posterior cava in a direction downwards
and backwards. The lower floor of the left, and
the upper of the right sinus venosi, are thus re-
moved from the axes of their respective cavities.
The phrenic curtain pushed to the right, by the
expansion of the middle lung, favours this move-
ment of the cava, while it tends to widen its
tube.
The cavities to which this distending mecha-
nism is applied during inspiration are exempt
from pressure, whilst the pulmonary veins in di-
rect communication with them are exposed to
the full pressure of the air rushing in by the tra-
chea to distend the air cells. . Besides, the pres-
sure of the atmosphere is exerted upon an extent
of surface of the pulmonary veins, holding an in-
verse ratio of proportion to the capacity of their
tubes.
To comprehend the mechanism by which the
great pulmonary veins or reservoirs of the left
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 2\)
heart are expanded in man, it is only necessary
to observe their connexion with the pericardium.
A little tongue appears to be cut in this bag from
behind forwards, to allow each vein to pass on to
the heart through a kind of square hole. This
tongue is then pulled backwards and outwards a
little out of the general line of the insertion of
the pericardium, and firmly glued to the anterior
surface only of the vein. This mechanism is
distinctly seen in man, as well on the right side
as on the left, within the pericardium. There is
a little pouch over each pulmonary vein, having
its point directed outwards, whilst in quadrupeds
no such contrivance exists. When the pericar-
dium, therefore, in man is brought forward by the
elevation of the sternum, and when it is enlarged
at its base by the expansion of the lungs, the an-
terior surfaces of the pulmonary veins, where
they enter the left sinus venosus, must be strained
forwards, whilst their posterior surfaces are re-
tained in their place.
If any further illustration were necessary of
the use of this peculiar attachment of the peri-
cardium to the pulmonary veins in man, we have
30 ON THE MOTION OF THE
only to observe, that if the loose bag be pulled,
however forcibly, in the direction which the move-
ments of respiration give it, the strain will be
brought on the anterior surfaces of the veins only,
never on any portion of the arteries.
This peculiar mode of connexion between the
pericardium and pulmonary veins does not exist
in quadrupeds, except as far as concerns the an-
terior veins of the left lung, and even in these in
a less remarkable manner ; whilst the accretion of
the contiguous sides of the cavas and pulmonary
veins, so marked and so extensive in quadrupeds,
is not found in man, at least not on the outside of
the pericardium. In support of the importance
of the pericardium in the mechanism of the cir-
culation, it may be remarked, that it is perhaps
the only part of the animal which is never found
entirely wanting.
I shall detail one more experiment, because it
affords additional evidence of the effects of at-
mospheric pressure upon the blood of the veins,
which in this case performed the part allotted to
the blue liquid in the other experiments.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 31
Fifth Experiment.
On the 30th November, 1824, I took a horse,
which had undergone no previous experiment
whatever, threw him, secured him, and laid bare
his left jugular vein for about eight or ten inches,
following the vessel as far towards the chest as I
thought safe. I next passed a ligature under it
at either extremity of the external incision : these
I knotted lightly, each over a small cork. Con-
siderably nearer the chest than the middle of the
incision, I made an opening into the vein, and
introduced into its canal, towards the heart, the
end A of the glass instrument (fig. 2) as far as
the globe would permit. The vessel was secured
round the tube by two turns of small twine, lightly
knotted, above the reverted lip of the lower open-
ing. I next divided the vein behind the globe,
and passed the upper end of it over the opening
B, securing it as before. This being done, I cut
upon the corks, first the lower, then the upper,
ligature. The blood now rushed rapidly through
the globe. Its motion was at first visible, but,
32 ON THE MOTION OP THE
after a few seconds, could not be perceived from
where I sat, the horse lying prostrate under me.
The apparatus was well adjusted, and kept its
place. The blood, I knew, passed freely into the
chest, for there was no enlargement of the vein
above the globe.
I now carefully washed the outside of the glass,
and placed myself upon my knees, supporting
my right hand extended upon the ribs of the
prostrate animal. By this arrangement I was
able to apply my eyes close to the globe, and at
the same time to feel, in the most exact manner,
the expansion and collapse of the thorax. The
dark blood, which nearly filled the globe, left a
small space unoccupied at its upper side. Very
little light, however, was reflected from the mass
below, and therefore, whilst I observed it in a sit-
ting posture, there appeared to be no motion on the
inside. When I applied my eyes closely, I could
distinctly perceive the blood rise within the globe,
and, as it approached the upper part, assume a
lighter red, as if a froth were raised upon it by the
rush to pass the lower opening. This appearance
regularly accompanied the elevation of the ribs,
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 33
over which I held my right hand expanded. Hav-
ing once caught the proper light, I could perceive
distinctly the motion of the blood in the globe,
keeping exact time with the inspirations. The
horse lay quietly, and breathed tranquilly. The tube
kept its place in the most satisfactory manner.
There was therefore neither hurry nor confusion.
I observed at leisure the perfect coincidence of
the passage of the blood through the globe with
the inspirations of the horse. This I could not
have done so well in any other attitude, as the
breathing was not sonorous in this case ; for I
could not have fixed my eyes on the glass and on
the thorax at the same time.
I have said that I observed the blood flowing
through the bulb of the tube in exact correspond-
ence with the expansion of the chest. The syn-
chronism was just as well marked as in the expe-
riments with the blue liquid and the spiral, with
this exception, however, that in the present case
there was no regurgitation, because the breathing
was not hurried. My observations were pro-
longed, repeated, and careful. After watching
the globe for some minutes, I resumed my sitting-
D
34
ON THE MOTION OF THE
posture, returned again to the kneeling position,
and observed the same phenomena going on
without the slightest alteration.
Three or four times I repeated this proceeding
in different lights, and constantly found the same
uninterrupted coincidence between the passage of
the blood through the globe and the elevation of
the ribs. I
This experiment appeared to me so conclusive
and unequivocal, that I shall never require a re-
petition of it for my own satisfaction.
I had often tried this experiment before, but
without having obtained very satisfactory results.
My failure I can now with confidence attribute to
the length of the tubes which I had hitherto used,
sometimes reaching from the angle of the jaw to
the root of the neck. In these cases, as soon as
the globe was filled, all movement ceased, owing
to the blood being protected from atmospheric
pressure through so long a portion of its horizon-
tal course, which also deprived it of the influence
of gravitation. My complete success with the
short tube justifies this remark.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 35
CONCLUSIONS.
From what has been said, and from what has
been observed in the experiments, the two fol-
lowing facts may be considered as proved : —
First, — That the cavities of the great veins
within the thorax, and all the thoracic cavities,
draw towards them the fluids with which they
are placed in direct communication.
Second, — That this attraction, or suction, never
takes place but during the expansion of the tho-
rax, that is, during inspiration.
From these facts, and from what we have seen
in the last experiment, we may conclude, —
1st. That the blood which rmis contrary to its
own gravity,' arrives at the heart only during inspira-
tion.
2dly. That the power which impels it at this
moment through the veins, is atmospheric pres-
sure.
3dly. That as this power can be applied to the
blood of the veins only at the moment of inspira-
tion, this blood must move with a velocity which
D 2
36 ON THE MOTION OP THE
is, to that of the blood moving through the arte-
ries, as the time occupied by a whole respira-
tion is to the time occupied by a single inspira-
tion.
4thly. As the blood passes through the greater
veins during inspiration only, whilst it is inces-
santly traversing the arteries, it follows, that an
accumulation must take place somewhere between
these two orders of vessels, and that the quan-
tity of this accumulation must be to the quantity
which passes through the arteries during an en-
tire act of respiration, as the time of one expira-
tion is to that of a whole respiration.
5thly. That, as it makes no difference with re-
gard to the event, whether the accumulation
which must be prepared for the expansion of the
thorax, be made by two pulsations of the arteries
or by ten, it follows that the frequency of the
pulse cannot be taken as the measure of the ve-
locity of the blood returning to the heart, because
it is the repetition of the inspirations which must
regulate this velocity.
6thly. That there are threje quantities of blood ;
one passing through the arteries, one which is
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 37
sucked up by each expansion of the thorax, and
a third, which is collected during expiration be-
tween these two points. When therefore the re-
spiration becomes hurried, this third quantity is
diminished, whilst the other two are increased in
proportion; but as the heart can admit only a
certain quantity, the expanding cavities regurgi-
tate the surplus during their collapse, Hence
pathological phenomena, into which I shall not
enter for the present.
7thly, That the lymph and chyle must be
sucked up towards the chest, through the direct
communications which the vessels peculiar to
these fluids have with the subclavion and other
veins. The question of absorption, therefore,
which has hitherto puzzled physiologists so much,
may now be considered as decided, for it is clear
that the open mouth of a vein, or of any other
vessel, having the same kind of communication
with the thoracic pumps, must absorb in direct
proportion to the sucking power applied to it, and
to the pressure exercised upon the matter to be
absorbed *.
* See Experiment, No. 1, page 10.
38 ON THE MOTION OP THE
If this last proposition be well founded, so
ought to be the following corollary, viz. :
That the application of a powerful cupping-glass to
a recently -poisoned wound, would prevent the absorp-
tion of the poisonous matter.
8thly. It being now evident, from every thing
that has been said, that the blood in the veins is
placed under the influence of atmospheric pres-
sure, it would be curious to trace the connexion
which appears to exist between disease gene-
rally, intermittent fever for example, and the
daily barometric variations.
9thly. The preceding facts explain also why
animal life cannot be maintained beyond a certain
degree of atmospheric rarefaction, and why it
must cease as soon as the pressure of the sur-
rounding air ceases to be superior to the gravity of
the column of blood. Birds are provided with a
respiratory mechanism, which, in some measure,
exempts them from this inconvenience.
lOthly. At the cardiac extremities of the great
veins there exists, as we have shewn, a mecha-
nism, which, when called into action by the ex-
pansion of the thorax, distends their cavities,
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 39
and, consequently, causes the suction of the
blood of the veins of the lesser, as well as of the
greater, circulation. Now, as this mechanism can
act only during inspiration, and as, from its con-
struction, and its position, it must necessarily af-
fect those portions of the auricles within the pe-
ricardium, called the sinus venosi, it follows that
there can be no alternation of contraction be-
tween these parts of the auricles and the ven-
tricles corresponding to the pulse, because the
sinus venosi must be in a state of progressive dis-
tension from the beginning to the end of inspi-
ration.
The influence which this disposition of the
parts, as well as the series of facts hitherto no-
ticed, may have upon the motion of the heart,
and upon the passage of the blood through this
organ, will form the subject of another Memoir.
I shall not now trespass longer on the atten-
tion of the Academy, by endeavouring to enu-
merate all the conclusions deducible from the
facts, which, I trust, will be considered as proved
by the experiments. In whatever light the re-
sults of my researches may be regarded, whether
40 ON THE MOTION OF THE
as merely explanatory of some doubtful points,
or as sufficiently novel and important to consti-
tute a discovery, I have brought them as an of-
fering to the Temple of French Science, where,
fortunately, Prejudice has not yet stript Physio-
logy of that portion of philosophic honour which
is her due.
Paris, June 6, 1825.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 41
SUPPLEMENT.
To illustrate the physical application of the prin-
ciples hitherto advanced, to the circulation of the
blood through the veins, and to shew that the
two paramount laws of nature, gravitation and
atmospheric pressure, are equally influential with
regard to animated as to inert matter, we shall
suppose two tubes of equal diameter, each in the
form of the letter U*. Let each of the branches
of these tubes be fifteen inches in length ; one
of these tubes shall be formed of a hard sub-
stance, such as glass, the other of a yielding dis-
tensible material, such as a vein.
(1.) Let mercury be injected into the branch
A of the first or hard tube, it will mount in the
branch B, until both are full ; and if the injection
be continued, the mercury will flow out at B in
* See plate, fig. 3.
42 ON THE MOTION OF THE
jets equal to and synchronous with the injections
at A.
(2.) If the same operation be performed on the
second or flexible tube, the same quantity of
mercury will not be sufficient to fill it, because
the lower parts of the tube will be distended by
the pressure of thirty inches of mercury, that is, of
fifteen inches on either side. None, therefore, will
flow out at B, until a much greater quantity than
that employed in the first operation shall have
been injected at A. Even after the mercury shall
have been raised to B in the flexible tube, it will
not flow out in jets either equal to or synchro-
nous with those injected at A, because a part of
the injecting force and of the mercury injected,
will be employed in producing fresh distension.
The slightest alteration, therefore, in the disten-
sibility of the tube will be felt at B, whatever
be the amount of the injecting power at A.
(3.) Let the branch B of the inflexible tube
be prolonged to thirty inches, and let a va-
cuum be established in the reservoir E, with
which this branch communicates : the mercury
in the branches A and B will be forced by atmo-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 43
spheric pressure up to E. If the mercury can be
removed from E according as it arrives, without
destroying the vacuum, all that is injected at A
will flow into the reservoir E.
(4.) Let us suppose the second or compressible
tube, under the circumstances just described, the
portion B E being empty, its walls will be
pressed flat by the weight of the atmosphere,
because the resistance which they offer is much
less than that of the gravitation of the mercury,
which, in this case, will not rise towards E, un-
less the tube be rendered incompressible by the
introduction of another tube capable of resisting
the pressure of the air, as in the first experiment.
(5.) If at the moment that the vacuum is
formed, the flexible tube be full as far as E, of a
liquid ten or twelve times lighter than mercury,
and if it be divided at short distances by valves,
each forming a base to the column above it, and
if the injections be continued not only at A, but at
many other points between C and E, and lastly,
if the sides of the flexible tube be attached to the
parts about it whose natural position tends to
keep these sides asunder, then the tube B E will
44 ON THE MOTION OF THE
not be pressed flat, and the vacuum at E will act
upon the contents of the whole tube, as soon as
the injecting power shall have placed them within
the sphere of its attraction.
(6.) Thus it is evident, that in the case of the
inflexible tube the injecting power alone applied
at A will discharge at B the precise quantity in-
jected, and that atmospheric pressure alone will
force the mercury to rise from C to the vacuum
E, without the assistance of the injecting force.
(7.) In the case of the compressible tube, the
injecting power alone, however great we may
suppose it at A, can never produce a flow of
liquid from B precisely equal to the quantity in-
jected, whatever qualities we may endow the
tube with, provided that it retain its distensi-
bility. (2.)
(8.) If the mechanism by which the mercury
is removed from the reservoir E, be made to in-
ject it into A, then as long as the vacuum can be
maintained, and the tube remains entire, the cir-
culation of the mercury will continue, provided,
with regard to the incompressible tube, that the
quantity of liquid remain unaltered ; whereas, this
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 45
condition is not at all indispensable to the per-
sistence of the circulation through the compres-
sible tube, because its own distensibility on one
hand, and the pressure of the air on the other,
will always accommodate its capacity to the
volume of its contents.
(9.) If the extent of the vacuum be diminished,
the quantity of liquid being the same, there will
be accumulation in the lower parts of the flexible
tube.
(10.) If the liquid in the branch C E of the
flexible tube, be forced by mechanical pressure
towards the part which offers least resistance,
viz., the vacuum, then the reservoir will be com-
pelled to dilate itself more rapidly, the instru-
ment which empties it must increase its action,
and produce increased velocity in the contents of
the branch A C.
(11.) If the distension of the reservoir E brings
up more liquid than is emptied into A, then its
contraction will force a part of its contents to
regurgitate towards B.
(12.) If the injection of the liquid into A should
cease altogether, or become very trifling, then
46 ON THE MOTION OF THE
the continuity of the column will be lost in the
branch B by the weight of the atmosphere press-
ing its sides together, and the expansion of the
reservoir must be diminished or cease altogether.
In this case, incline the tube towards E, the
gravity of the liquid will favour the expansion of
the reservoir, which will be renewed without any
difficulty, because it is no longer opposed by the
gravitation of the liquid.
(13.) If an opening be made at D in the branch
C E of the inflexible tube, air or any other fluid will
enter by this opening, will force the mercury up
to E, and occupy its place ; but in the flexible
tube, the weight of the atmosphere will press the
walls of the tube together above the opening, and
the vacuum will cease to act upon the portion
below it. In this case a part of the liquid in-
jected at A will flow out at D, and the rest will be
employed in distending the lower portion of the
tube.
(14.) If a vacuum be applied over the opening
D — first, neither air, nor any other fluid can be
forced into the opening; secondly, a portion of
the liquid which otherwise would have been com-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 47
pelled to rise to E, will be recalled towards D,
and a fortiori, a much larger portion of the liquid
contained in A C.
(15.) It is now evident, that the liquid con-
tained in the flexible tube can mount to E only,
at the moment when the reservoir is expanding,
and that at the instant when the tendency to a
vacuum ceases in the reservoir, the liquid will
obey the law of gravitation, and will distend the
lower parts of the tube. (2.)
(16.) It is also easy to conceive that the motion
of the liquid in the branch A will be in direct
proportion to the injecting power, as the velocity
of the contents of the branch B will be to the
expansion of the reservoir E, and that a mutual
influence will be felt in both branches through
their communication at C, whether by one or
more canals.
(17.) Let the reservoir E be now the most de-
pendent part of the tube. The gravitation of the
liquid will be opposed to the injecting power in
the branch A, whilst it will favour the influence of
the vacuum in the branch B. But as atmospheric
pressure is everywhere equal, if the contracting
48 ON THE MOTION OF THE
force of the reservoir E be able to resist the
gravitation of the liquid in B, then that which is
injected at. A can be received into E, only at the
moment that the tendency to a vacuum takes
place.
(18.) If the tube be supposed incompressible
from A to B only, then the liquid will fall from B
in jets equal to and synchronous with those in-
jected at A, and its gravitation towards the reser-
voir will only operate from B to E, where it will
accumulate, producing distension proportioned to
its quantity, and to the interval between the ex-
pansions of the reservoir. The dilatation of the
reservoir will affect the contents of the tube B
only as far as it is compressible.
(19.) If a portion of the tube A B be rendered
compressible at C, (E being still the most de-
pendent point,) a depression and elevation will be
perceptible at C, corresponding to the expansion
and contraction of the reservoir E. If this com-
pressible portion be again rendered incompressible,
the depression and elevation must cease at C,
because atmospheric pressure can no longer
affect it.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 49
(20.) Let us suppose that the portion C be
again rendered flexible, and that it is the lowest
point of the tube. In this case the force of gra-
vitation in both branches, and the injecting
force in the branch A, will direct the liquid to-
wards C, and the depression and elevation will not
be perceptible, but the portion C will be perma-
nently distended. (2.)
(21.) Let us now apply these data to the liv-
ing animal, to man, for example. The aorta and
lower cava represent the flexible tube. The tho-
racic cavities, but particularly the pericardium,
are the reservoirs in which the tendency to a va-
cuum takes place during inspiration. The heart
is the instrument by which the contents of the re-
servoir are injected into the branch A, without
destroying the vacuum. It is not difficult to per-
ceive that every thing we have said relative to the
flexible tube is perfectly applicable to the parts
below the heart.
(22.) The application of the data resulting
from the case in which the tube is supposed to be
partly incompressible, and where the reservoir is
E
50 ON THE MOTION OF THE
the most depending point, merits more particular
attention.
(23.) This tube is represented in man by the
carotid arteries on one side, and the jugular veins
and upper cava on the other ; the incompressible
portion of the tube by the cranium. As the form
of the adult head is incapable of alteration, so
must the volume of its contents remain unal-
tered, however they may be modified in point of
density. The veins which run between the two
tables of the flat bones of the skull, and in the
substance of the vertebrse and other bones, pre-
sent striking examples of the inflexible tube *.
(24.) The pulsation observed in the jugular
veins, synchronous with that of the arteries,
proves that the blood which runs in the veins of
the cranium is subject to the general laws of
gravitation. The same experiments performed
upon the jugular veins of animals in the horizontal
and vertical positions afford different results.
* M. Brechet was kind enough to give me an opportunity
of examining his splendid preparations and plates of these
veins.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 51
Sixth Experiment.
I fixed the glass tube (fig. 2), in the jugular
vein of a horse while he was standing, in such a
way that the current of the blood must pass
through the globe, and I observed, 1st, that the
jets which fell from the end next the head were
not synchronous with inspiration ; 2dly, that
they were more frequent than the pulse, but
that the beat of the artery had a marked in-
fluence over them. Thus the jets falling into the
globe became much less distinct when the carotid
was even lightly pressed, than when it was free ;
but the influence of gravitation was constantly
sending some drops into the globe. When the
horse was thrown, and placed horizontally, the
movements of the blood through the globe were
perfectly synchronous with those of inspiration.
When the horse was again placed on his legs, the
vein above the upper end of the tube having be-
come straightened by exposure to the air, a pul-
sation was observed at that point, the acme of
whose swell was precisely synchronous with that
of the carotid. (18.)
E 2
52 ON THE MOTION OP THE
This experiment accounts for the difference hi-
therto observable in the opinions of physiolo-
gists, as to the cause of the pulsation of the jugu-
lar veins ; some having made their observations
upon man in the vertical position, others upon
animals placed horizontally. /
There is at this moment, in one of Professor
Laennec's clinical wards, a patient, aged sixty-
eight, in whose external jugular veins, and upper
portion of the superficial thoracic veins, a regular
pulsation has been observed for a considerable
time. It has sometimes extended to the veins of
the upper arm. The jugulars begin to swell before
the artery, which beats forty-eight in the minute,
but they arrive at their acme at the moment that
the artery strikes the finger. The bleedings or-
dered for his disease, (hypertrophia cordis,) and
a diarrhoea, which sometimes occurs, diminish the
venous pulsation, but have never removed it.
When this man is made to recite any thing, the
pulsation ceases entirely, but the veins continue
to increase in size. (18.) When he inspires, in
order to continue the recitation, the veins col-
lapse immediately, and so on as long as he con-
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 53
tinues to speak. When the head of this patient
is placed lower than his thorax, the veins of the
neck swell prodigiously, and their pulsation
ceases. (17.)
This man lately became dropsical, his ab-
domen rapidly increased in volume, with op-
pressed respiration. The pulsation of the jugulars
however, still continued. He was tapped some days
ago, and from twenty-five to thirty pints of hydro-
pic water were drawn off. At the morning visit,
after this operation, there was no pulsation ob-
servable in the veins of the neck or chest. ,The
jugulars remained perfectly collapsed, and became
prominent only when he coughed or expired
strongly. (17—18.)
The accumulation of blood which, before the
tapping, used to extend in the jugulars almost to
the angle of the jaw, now takes place below
the clavicle, and the jets which fall from the
head, pass through these veins without being per
ceived.
Professor Laennec, besides permitting me to
note these observations in his hospital, conde-
scended to verify their exactness with me at the
54 ON THE MOTION OF THE
bedside of the patient*. To this learned phy-
sician, all foreigners, attending his practice and
his most interesting pathological lectures, are
largely indebted, for the kind assiduity with
which he directs their research.
(25.) With regard to the elevation and de-
pression of the brain and its membranes, which,
under certain circumstances, are observed to take
place in living animals, I shall take the liberty of
quoting the words of Haller.
" Ergo si vivo animali non nimis debilitato,
cranium aperueris, aut trepano aut unco, duram-
que matrem detexeris, et digito a cranio de-
presseris, videbis ad singulas inspirationes subsi-
dere cerebrum, aut solum aut cum suis involucris ;
vicissim idem cerebrum surgere, cranio se ad-
mo vere, digitum impositum repellere. Et vix re-
spirationis in cerebrum effectus demonstrari po-
test, nisi duram matrem a cranio depresserisf."
* I hazarded an opinion that the jugular pulsation would
return again with the return of the dropsical effusion and
consequent swelling of the abdomen. This prognostic was
fully verified by the event.
t Tom. ii. lib. 4.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 55
The causes of these phenomena, according to
Haller, are, first, The greater facility afforded by
the expansion of the lungs during inspiration, to
the passage of the blood through these organs.
" Nascitur ergo derivatio, et sanguis venosus
undique ad earn sedem confluit." Secondly,
The obstacles opposed to this same blood during
expiration. " In expiratione thorax contrahitur,
comprimuntur pulmones, auriculae, vena? cavae, fit
refluxus in venas cerebri. Hinc presso, ut ego
presseram thorace, elisaque vena cava, perinde
cerebrum elevatur*."
Here it is important to remark, that even after
* Since the printing of my Memoir sur les Causes du
Mouvement du Sang dans les Veines, the following pas-
sage has been pointed out to me in the Philosophical Trans-
actions of 1810, (Part I.) "as in a great measure anticipating
my views, with regard to the influence of the expansion of
the thorax upon the return of the blood through the veins.
" At the instant that the chest is dilated for the reception of
air, its vessels become also more open for the reception of
blood, so that the return of the blood from the head is more
free than at any other period of complete respiration. On the
contrary, by the act of expelling air from the lungs, the in-
gress of the blood is so far obtructed, that when the surface
of the brain is exposed by a trepan, a successive turgescence
and subsidence of the brain is seen in alternate motion with
56 ON THE MOTION OF THE
a portion of the dura mater has been laid bare,
the elevatioji and depression of the brain do not
take place, so long as the membrane, by its ad-
herence to the margins of the opening in the bone
is able to resist atmospheric pressure ; but as
soon as a part of the tube becomes compressible,
by the separation of the dura mater from the
cranium, these phenomena become apparent, un-
less the head of the animal be placed in the most
depending position. In this case, they cannot
take place, for the reasons already stated. (20.)
This fact I have proved by direct experiment
upon the living animal.
(26.) From what we have seen in the Memoir,
and from what has been said in the Supplement,
the different states of the chest." — Croonian Lecture, by W. H.
Wollaston, M.D.)
The illustrious author, for whose transcendent talents I have
ever entertained the most profound veneration, will not, I
trust, be offended at my observing, that though he has not
quoted the name of Haller, the whole passage is a close trans-
lation of the extracts from that great physiologist, which I had
placed in my text, without having seen the very interesting
and ingenious lecture just quoted. This passage, therefore,
cannot be supposed to have advanced our knowledge of the
causes of the progression of the blood in the veins one point
beyond where Haller left it.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 57
it is evident that fluids, whether moving through
living, or through inert tubes, obey the laws of
pressure and of gravitation ; and that in the qui-
escent living animal, the only demonstrable active
powers employed by nature to propel the con-
tents of the veins towards the heart, are-
First, The impulse given by the pressure of
the heart itself, continued through, and propa-
gated by the arteries. By this power the blood
is sent into the situation where it can be most
favourably acted upon, by
Secondly, Atmospheric pressure, diminished or
entirely taken off around the cardiac ends of the
venous tubes during the expansion of the chest,
but unaltered and entire around every other part
of their surface, opposed only by the gravity of
the fluid acted upon.
Thirdly, Gravitation, when the heart is rela-
tively the most depending point, or when this
power is acting with the pressure of the heart's
contraction upon the base of the venous column.
Of these powers the pressure of the atmo-
sphere is by far, the most intense in its degree,
the most constant in its influence, and the most
58 ON THE MOTION OF THE
unvarying in its amount. It is that without
which the circulation could not be maintained
beyond a few moments.
Hence it must now be needless to repeat that the
constant supply of blood to the heart cannot de-
pend solely upon the causes to which it has been
hitherto ascribed, as already stated at the com-
mencement of the memoir.
(27.) The following phenomena, amongst others
connected with the venous circulation in man,
afford still further proofs of the identity of the
laws which preside over the motion of fluids,
whether through organized or in lifeless tubes.
1. The swelling of the lower extremities in
habitual dyspnoea. (9.)
2. The effect of violent bodily exercise. (10.)
3. Pulsation of the veins synchronous with re-
spiration. (11.)
4. Fainting from loss of blood, and the best
mode of relieving it, by placing the head and
heart lower than the rest of the body. (12.)
5. The effect of opening a vein at a distance
from the heart. (13.)
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 59
6. The effect of a vacuum established over this
opening. (14.)
7. The circulation within the cranium, be-
tween its tables, and in the substance of other
bones. (18.)
8. The swelling of the jugulars during ex-
piration. (18.)
9. The pulsation of the jugulars corresponding
to that of the arteries. (18.)
10. The elevation and depression of the brain
and its membranes in infants, before the closing
of the fontanelles, and in adult animals when a
portion of the cranium is removed.
fSig?iedJ David Barry.
61
INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.
Royal Academy of Sciences,
Paris, August 30, 1825.
The perpetual Secretary of the Academy for the
Natural Sciences certifies, that the following is
extracted from the Notes of the Proceedings of
the Sitting of Monday, the 29th of August,
1825.
REPORT UPON DR. BARRY'S MEMOIR, ON THE MOTION
OF THE BLOOD IN THE VEINS.
The circulation in the vertebrated animals is one
of the parts of physiology upon which we have
acquired the most positive degree of knowledge.
Our more exact notions however, do not date
farther back than the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the epoch when Harvey demonstrated
the true mechanism which gives motion to the
blood, and which favours its continual transport
through the system.
Every one knows that the tubes which go out
from the heart, and through which the blood is
propelled, and directed to all the parts of the
62
ON THE MOTION OF THE
body, are called arteries ; and that the tubes
which conduct the blood, the chyle, and the
lymph, to the heart, have received the name of
veins. In short, that the heart itself, the organ
which, to a certain degree, determines the mode
of the circulation, varies as to its position, its
structure, and many other appreciable circum-
stances, whilst its essential mechanism, by which
its functions are executed, remains nearly the
same.
The direction in which the venous blood is
constantly carried towards the heart was noticed
by Michael Servet, more than fifty years before
Harvey made those direct experiments by which
he ascertained the true mechanism of the circu-
lation. Notwithstanding this important and me-
morable discovery, many discussions have since
arisen as to the true causes of the progression of
the blood in the veins. It is of importance to the
question which we are about to examine, to give
a brief account of the leading opinions which
have been started upon this subject, without,
however, entering into a chronological history of
them.
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 63
We shall place at the head, the impellant ac-
tion of the heart and arteries, which was sup-
posed to be continued through the venous capil-
laries by the pressure exercised upon them at
their anastomoses with the arteries. This was
the opinion of Harvey. According to Biehat, the
absorbing power of the venous capillary system
is sufficient to originate, and afterwards to keep
up the progression of the blood through the veins,
assisted by the action of the coats of these ves-
sels themselves. In fine, according to the opi-
nions of various authors, a great number of se-
condary causes facilitate this action of the veins ;
such as the motion of the great arterial trunks,
generally placed between two veins ; the pres-
sure exercised both externally and internally
on all the organs by the skin, by the muscles, by
the viscera, which collapse, and are distended
alternately. But the action of respiration was
more particularly noticed, from its evident con-
nexion with the mechanical return of the blood
by the veins. To explain this phenomenon, some
supposed that the blood was brought up with
greater or less velocity, according as the lungs
64 ON THE MOTION OF THE
were more or less empty (Rudiger). Or as a
deeper and more rapid inspiration allowed a
freer course to the blood in the lungs (Santo-
rini). Haller, torn, ii., of his Physiology, page
333, quotes a great number of experiments,
which he repeated upon living animals. In those
of Valsalva and Morgagni he observed, when he
laid bare the great veins, such as the anterior
and posterior cavse, the jugulars, the subclavians,
that it was at the instant when the animal made
a deep inspiration, that the venous blood arrived
at the heart ; that it was at this moment that all
the veins unloaded themselves, grew pale, col-
lapsed, and emptied themselves of the blood
which they contained; and that during the expi-
ration which immediately followed,, the same
veins swelled, became livid, round ; and that the
more distinctly the two periods of respiration
were marked, the more , apparent these pheno-
mena became.
Morgagni had already stated (De causis et se-
dibus morborum, lib. 19, art. 33 et 34), that, by
attentively observing the jugular vein of a living
dog, whilst he held his hand upon the abdomen
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 65
of the animal, he had clearly ascertained, that
at each time the belly was elevated by the act of
inspiration, at that very moment the vein col-
lapsed, to swell again as soon as the parietes
of the abdomen fell during the act of expi-
ration.
A great number of authors since this period,
particularly our able associate, M. Majendie
(Physiologic, 2d edition, page 418), have corro-
borated these circumstances, and have brought
in proof of the connexion between inspiration
and the quickening of the motion of the blood in
the larger venous trunks, new and ingenious ex-
periments, which have confirmed the constant
occurrence of this phenomenon. But at the same
time, considering it to be merely an auxiliary
mean of facilitating the arrival of the venous
blood. In fine, although the greatest number of
physiologists attributed the progression of the
venous blood towards the heart to a vacuum
formed in this organ, Bichat (Anatomie Geni-
rale, torn, i, page 429), very properly observed,
that the motion of the blood in the veins still
needs much elucidation ; for, adds he, notwith-
F
66 ON THE MOTION OF THE
standing all that authors have written upon this
subject, it still presents much obscurity, in which
but few gleams of light are perceptible.
We have thought it our duty to enter into these
details, in order that the Academy might be able
to judge of the Memoir, for the examination of
which, M. the Baron Cuvier and I have had the
honour of being appointed Commissioners.
In this work Dr. Barry states his peculiar views
on the subject of the motion of the blood in the
veins. He details minutely the proceedings
which he has contrived, we can say, with saga-
city ; which he has executed upon living animals,
with address ; and which he was kind enough to
repeat several times under the eyes of your Com-
missioners.
His Memoir presents three principal points of
inquiry.
1. To determine by positive experiments, what
the power is which forces the venous blood to
direct its course, from the most minute ramifica-
tions where it has its source, towards the heart,
where it empties itself.
2. To appreciate, and to compare, the velocity
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 67
with which the blood is moved in the veins, and
in the arteries.
3. To prove that the never-failing supply of
venous blood to the heart, cannot be solely owing
to the causes to which it has been hitherto at-
tributed.
Under the first head Dr. Barry, in studying the
phenomena of the venous circulation, has been
led to observe that, by the act of inspiration a
vacuum is formed within the chest when it
tends to dilate its capacity, and that all liquids
in communication with the interior of the thorax
must be attracted thither, being forced towards
it by atmospheric pressure.
All the facts with which we are acquainted,
it must be confessed, find their explanation ; in this
physical effect. Such are, for example, the
swelling of the jugular veins during expiration ;
their collapse at the moment of inspiration ; the
cessation of certain hemorrhages by means of
forced inspirations ; the absorption of air by the
veins, and the accidents which have resulted from
it, when any of these vessels near the heart
have been opened or divided.
F 2
68 ON THE MOTION OF THE
The author, not satisfied with bringing these
facts as evidence to support his opinion, resolved
to strengthen it by direct experiments, of which
the following are the principal : —
Having fixed into one of the great veins, such
as the jugular of a living animal, one end of a
tube, armed with a stop-cock, whilst the other
end was plunged in a coloured liquid, he observed,
upon opening the stop-cock, that when the
animal inspired, the liquid was forcibly drawn up ;
and that during expiration, on the contrary, the
liquid remained stationary, if it did not return
towards the vessel.. We are able to announce
moreover to the Academy, that whenever the
experimenter introduced the same tube, which
was contrived with much ingenuity, into either
of the thoracic cavities, or even into the peri-
cardium, the same phenomena were reproduced.
Dr. Barry made use of spiral glass tubes, in
order that by increasing the distance which the
liquid had to pass over, its motion might be ren-
dered more apparent. He also either mixed
with the coloured liquid some drops of oil, or
allowed some bubbles of air to enter the tube,
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 69
that the ascent of the liquid might be more strik-
ingly perceptible.
In all these experiments, executed with the
greatest address, and with such satisfactory pre-
cautions, as would obviate all objections which
might be opposed to them, the author of the
Memoir, the result of which we are anxious to
lay before you, fully ascertained, that the sucking
action of the great veins was precisely coincident
with the instant when the animal endeavoured
to form the vacuum in his chest ; that the black
blood passed through the veins only during the
act and the time of inspiration ; and that this
venous movement was always placed under the
influence of the action of atmospheric pressure.
M. Barry is so convinced of the action of the
atmosphere upon venous absorption, that he
considers the application of a cupping-glass to a
recent wound, into the interior of which any dele-
terious matter may have been introduced, as a
certain mean of preventing the absorption of the
poisonous matter.
M. Barry attributes also to atmospheric pres-
sure the absorbent action of the pulmonary
venoso-arterial system, or of the lesser circulation.
70 ON THE MOTION OF THE
i
But here the author offers reasonings based upon
anatomical structure, rather than upon positive ob-
servation ; and some facts of comparative anatomy
might be successfully opposed to this opinion,
which the author has not brought forward with
such conclusive experiments as those upon which
he has based his demonstration of the action of
atmospheric pressure upon the greater venous
circulation.
As to the appreciation of the comparative ve-
locity of the blood in, the two orders of vessels
which it traverses, the author founds it upon the
notion that the pressure of the atmosphere is
the principal power which impels the venous
blood to the -heart during inspiration. This
blood, therefore, must move with a rapidity
which is to that of the arterial blood, as the time
employed in one entire respiration, is to the time
of a single inspiration. Thus the frequency of
the pulse cannot be taken as the measure of
the velocity of the blood returning to the heart,
because according to the first hypothesis, it
would be the repetition of the movements of in-
spiration, which would regulate this velocity.
This part of the Memoir is entirely founded on
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 71
reasoning, and is not supported by such proofs
and observations, as would permit us to pro-
nounce an opinion upon this particular point.
With regard to the last consequence, which the
author deduces from his Memoir, viz., that the
supply of venous blood to the heart cannot be at-
tributed solely to the causes hitherto pointed out ;
we must declare, that the mere idea of the pres-
sure of the atmosphere being the principal cause,
was not first taken up by him. Many others had
pointed out this even before Dr. Zugenbhuler, who
has thought proper to address 'a claim of priority
to the academy, putting in at the same time a
dissertation, De Motu Sanguinis per Venas, pub-
lished in 1815. This author however, although
he recognises the action of the pressure of the
atmosphere, considers the heart as the first cause
of the vacuum which is formed in the system.
But M. Barry attributes the dilatation of the
heart itself, and of its auricles, to the tendency to
a vacuum which takes place in all the cavities of
the chest, during inspiration ; demonstrating this
action by positive experiments, whilst M. Zugen-
bhuler offers argument only in support of his
opinion.
72 ON THE MOTION OF THE
In concluding this report upon M. Barry's
interesting Memoir, we feel it our duty to declare,
that the experiments described with much detail
by the author, have been performed and repeated
more than twenty times upon dogs, upon sheep,
upon horses; that they have constantly suc-
ceeded whenever he was able to bring fairly into
operation the ingenious apparatus which he had
contrived for the purpose ; and that these experi-
mental researches took place under our eyes, at
the School of Medicine, at the King's Garden, at
the School of Alfort in presence of Mr. Girard,
and at the Abbattoirs of Montfaucon.
Your commissioners consider these researches
as made in the very best spirit, and as eminently
calculated to elucidate the physiological history
of the venous circulation in the mammalia.
Under this impression they have the honour to
propose to the Academy — that the author be in-
vited to continue his investigations relative to the
causes of Absorption, a subject which presents
much interest, and the most useful applications to
the animal economy ; and that M. Barry's Memoir
be inserted amongst those of learned strangers.
Your commissioners, however, must not conceal
BLOOD IN THE VEINS. 73
that in their particular opinion the act of inspira-
tion which appears to produce a vacuum within
the thoracic cavities of animals having lungs, such
as the mammalia and birds and consequently the
attraction of the venous blood towards these
cavities, is not sufficient to explain the motion of
the blood in the veins of fishes, and of some
reptiles, in which the mode of respiration is
different. The same coincidence of action not
being observed between inspiration (which in
these animals is a species of deglutition), and the
arrival of the venous blood at the cavity of their
hearts.
(Signed) Baron Cuvier,
Dumeril, Reporter.
The Academy adopts the conclusions of this
report.
Certified to be according to the original.
Perpetual Secretary, Councillor of State, Com-
mander of the Royal order of the Legion of
Honour,
Baron Cuvier.
PART II.
ON ABSORPTION.
Chapter I.
Short History of the Ancient and Modern Theories of
External Absorption — Imbibition — Comparison of
the Ancient and Modern Modes of treating Poisoned
Wounds. Influence of these Theories upon Practice.
The progress of our knowledge in the physiology
of absorption as exercised by abraded surfaces, is
traced in the history of poisoning through super-
ficial wounds. How or when man first became
acquainted with this baleful art is hidden from
us in the most remote antiquity. It had at-
tained to a degree of perfection, and certainly of
effect, long before the date of the very earliest
records that have reached us, equal to, if not
surpassing what is known to the most enlight-
ened nations of the present day.
76 ON ABSORPTION.
The story of the arrows of Hercules clipped in
the venom of the Lernsean Hydra — the circum-
stantial accounts of the sufferings and death of
Chiron, Nessus, and Hercules himself, leave no
room for doubt upon this subject. They furnish
the details of so many direct experiments, proving
that men in those remote times knew that cer-
tain poisons deposited in wounds were carried
into and mixed with the general mass of blood*.
Those to whom we are indebted for these details
have unfortunately not recorded any opinion as
to the manner in which the mixture of the poison
and the blood was thought to be effected. Man-
kind seem to have been satisfied with the know-
ledge of the fact, and the practical application of
it to the purposes of war and the chase. If any
inquiry were made as to the mechanism by which
the deleterious substance was removed from the
surface towards the centre, no satisfactory ac-
count is given of it previously to the times of
Celsus and Galen.
* Posse mori cupias turn cum cruciabere dirae
Sanguine, serpentis per saucia membra recepto.
Ovid. Met. lib. 2.
ON ABSORPTION. 77
The advances made in anatomy by these great
physicians enabled them to perceive that the
veins were the fittest organs through which the
matter from abroad could pass into the general
system; and as they found these tubes leading
directly towards the centre, they recommended
that a ligature should be placed above the poi-
soned wound, if on a limb.
This more enlightened view of external ab-
sorption continued to prevail amongst physiolo
gists for seventeen centuries, as we learn from
Redi, who wrote in 1664. " Ex consilio Galeni
fiat stricta ligatura non procul a vulnere in parte su-
periori, videlicet, ne per sanguinis circulationem,
venenum ad cor feratur, totaque sanguinea massa
inficiatur*."
As the ancients did not distinguish the arteries,
particularly the smaller ones, from the veins, it is
probable that all the vessels carrying blood were
promiscuously considered as absorbing organs.
The discovery of the true mechanism of the
circulation by Harvey, (although it reflected but
* Redi, de Viperis.
78
ON ABSORPTION.
little additional light upon absorption,) by dis-
tinguishing the centripetal from the centrifugal
current, must necessarily have excluded the ar-
teries from any share in this function.
Redi must have been acquainted with the
theory of the circulation as taught by Harvey,
and with the existence of the lymphatic vessels,
discovered fourteen years before he wrote ; yet
his opinions with regard to external absorption
appear to have been exactly those of Celsus and
Galen.
It was only about the middle of the eighteenth
century that the duties of absorption were first
exclusively attributed to the lymphatics. The high
authority of the Hunters, who taught that these
vessels were the only organs employed in con-
veying matter from without into the system of
the living animal, overturned the opinions which
had prevailed upon this subject, without having
been once questioned for nearly two thousand
years.
M. Majendie deserves infinite praise for the
able manner in which he demonstrated the
error of considering the lymphatics as the sole
ON ABSORPTION. 79
absorbents, and the necessity of returning to the
sounder doctrine of venous absorption, held by
Celsus, Galen, Redi, Ruysch, &c. His experi
raents, without proving that the lymphatics are
not absorbents, leave not the slightest doubt that
the veins do absorb.
These experiments however notwithstanding
their ingenuity, do no more than bring back the
question of absorption to the stage of advancement
in which Ruysch and Boerhaave had left it, with
this difference, that instead of assertion we have
direct proof that this function may be carried on
by the veins. But the causes which induce or
compel the matter deposited on a wounded
surface to enter the cavities of the veins, and to
mix itself with the passing current of the blood,
still continue to be desiderata. Now that tan-
gible facts alone can be received as demonstra-
tions in physiology, the notions of a peculiar un-
intelligible vital power of discernment and ap-
propriation existing at the ends of the absorbing
radicules, cannot even be alluded to.
M. Majendie aware of this, and of the little
that his experiments had added to our stock of
80 ON ABSORPTION.
knowledge on the subject alluded to, proposed
imbibitio?i* , as sufficient to account for the transfer
of matter from the surface of a wound to the
current of the venous blood. According to this
doctrine the matter placed in contact with a
wound, if solid, is first dissolved in the fluids of
the part, and when the coats of the vessels are
soaked in the solution, that part of it which pene-
trates to their inside is washed off and carried
forward by the current of the circulation.
This would render absorption a very tedious
and uncertain process indeed, as we shall see by
the conditions required to effect it.
1. There must be a current flowing in the vein
through the coats of which the imbibition takes
place, else the imbibed matter cannot be washed
off and carried forward.
2. If the vein does contain a fluid, the imbibition
or passive soaking of its coats may take place
at least as readily from within outwards as in the
opposite direction.
3. The open mouth of a divided or wounded vein
* Physiologic, 2 Ed. Absorp. Veineuse.
ON ABSORPTION. 81
cannot become the subject of imbibition under
any circumstances, and if the vessel be collapsed
and empty imbibition will take place to no pur-
pose, there being no current to carry forward the
imbibed matter.
4. In all wounds minute arterial and lympha-
tic branches must be divided and laid bare as well
as veins, and as there can be no very great dif-
ference in the density of their coats, imbibition
may take place through the sides of all, and con-
sequently absorption if there be a current flow-
ing through their tubes, but not otherwise.
Thus according to M. Majendie's own shewing,
in order that matter shall be conveyed from the
surface into the circulation, it is necessary that
it be placed in contact with the outside of a vein
through which a current is actually flowing, and
that the coats of this vein shall be incapable of
being soaked from within by the contained liquid,
while they are ready to be soaked in the same
liquid from without, holding the matter to be im-
bibed in solution.
This last condition of soaking or imbibition of
a liquid in one direction only, though applied to
G
82 ON ABSORPTION.
both sides of the same substance, is rather diffi-
cult to be comprehended ; for if both sides of a
sponge be placed in equal contact with water,
imbibition will go on towards the centre equally
from both surfaces, and will cease when the
sponge is saturated. If this simple fact were to
be verified in the case of the vein, the poison
would never reach the current on its inside. But
M. Majendie has most fully and satisfactorily
proved that it does reach the current. There
must then be some agent beyond mere passive
imbibition, to give this unvarying direction from
without inwards, to a liquid which, a priori,
should rather pass in the opposite direction. '
Such is the present state of our knowledge of
absorption. Some still hold that the lymphatics
are the sole absorbents — some that the sanerui-
ferous veins alone perform this function —
some that both are concerned in it — all know that
absorption does take place. This was known two
thousand years ago — Celsus and Galen pointed
out the veins as the proper organs — moderns
have added or substituted lymphatics.
How much useful knowledge then have we
ON ABSORPTION. 83
gained upon this subject in three thousand years ?
Let us examine the results of the application to
practice of the different theories, and see where
the advantage lies.
In the very early ages, there appears to have
existed no theory on the subject of poisoning from
the surface. Men were satisfied with the existence
of the fact, and busied themselves only in seeking
for a mode of cure.
Philoctetes was restored to health by the
skill of Machaon after having been wounded by
one of the poisoned arrows of Hercules*; yet
Chiron, though himself a teacher of medicine, fell
a victim to a similar wound f . The arrow by which
Nessus was killed required no poison to effect its
purpose, having passed through the centre of his
thorax, nor could any antidote have saved him J.
*Prop. 2—1, 59.
f In the fourth book of the Iliad, Machaon is made to suck
the wound of Menelaus. This is certainly the earliest record
of a vacuum having been applied to a wound, whether
poisoned or supposed to be so.
J Et missa fugientia terga sagitta
Trajecit. Extabat ferrum de pectore aduncum.
Sanguis per utrumque foramen
Emicuit, mistus Lernaei tabe Veneni. OvmMet. lib. ix.
G2
84 ON ABSORPTION.
As to Hercules, he appears to have been
destroyed by a corrosive poison*, and no treat-
ment was had recourse to. Of the two treated,
one recovered.
Hippocrates, as far as I can recollect, says
nothing of poisoned wounds, although he would
seem to make allusion to them in the following
passage f-
" Cucurbitulte, quae eum in usum fabricates sunt ut
ex came attrahant et avellant." In this sentence the
first mention of cupping-instruments occurs. If
they were used in the cure or prevention of trau-
matic poisoning, there can be very little doubt
that they were supposed to act merely by extract-
ing the deleterious matter (e came) from the
wound. The pressure of the atmosphere being
then entirely unknown, no theory connected with
this agent could have existed.
When the blood-vessels were pointed out as
the channels through which the poison passed into
the system, the ligature above the wound was
naturally thought of, and as the cucurbitulm at-
* " Letiferam conatus scindere Vestem ;
" Qua trahitur, trahit ilia cutem " Ovid loco citato.
t Hipp. Sect. I. De Medico.
ON ABSORPTION. 85
tracted towards them the contents of these ves
sels, their utility was rather confirmed than other
wise, for it was evident that the blood flowing
from the infected surface would carry with it
some portion of the poison which had been depo-
sited there.
Accordingly Celsus, with his usual eloquence
and perspicuity, places the cucurbitulse unequi-
vocally at the head of all preventative and reme-
dial agents in cases of recently-poisoned wounds *.
Talking of the bites of animals, and after re-
marking that all such wounds are more or less
envenomed, he says f, — " Utique autem, si rabiosus
canis fuit, cucurbitula virus ejus extrahendum est ;
deinde, si locus neque nervosus, neque musculosus est,
vulnus id adurendum est."
For the bite of the viper, he recommends that
a ligature should be immediately placed above
the wound. " Dein venerium extrahendum est. — Id
cucurbitula optime facit? If, he adds, there should
happen to be no cupping-instrument at hand, a
circumstance which can scarcely be supposed as
likely to occur, "Homo adhibendus est, qui vulnus
exsugat."
* Celsus, lib. 5, cap. xxvii. t Loco citato.
86 ON ABSORPTION.
These passages, and many others to be found
in the same author, fully prove —
1. That the cucurbitults were the chief, if not
in his opinion, the only effectual means to be
resorted to for the extraction of poison from
wounds.
2. That these instruments were so universally
applied to this purpose at the time he wrote, that
they were always to be found at hand.
3. That direct suction by the mouth was next
to cupping the best preventative, and that either
of them was sufficient in cases of viper-bites; for
in his directions upon this subject the cautery is
not mentioned.
After this the question of priority in the appli-
cation of a vacuum to wounds inflicted by the
bites of rabid and venomous animals, for the pur-
pose of extracting the poison, can be entertained
only by the antiquarian, and no man more mo-
dern than Celsus can be at all contemplated in
the discussion of it.
Strabo, Pliny the elder, Galen, Plutarch, all
mention the Psylli, the Marsi, and the Ophigines,
as having acquired the reputation of being born
with the hereditary power of curing the bites of
ON ABSORPTION. 87
venomous serpents. The Psylli, as we learn from
Celsus, always sucked the wound. Ergo quisquis
exemplum Psylli secutus id vulnus exsuxerit, et ipse
tutus erit, et tutum hominem prcestabit.
Plutarch tells us that when Cato commanded
an army in Africa, rinding he lost more men by
the bites of venomous reptiles than by the arms
of the enemy, he hired and attached to his camp
a certain number of the Psylli and Marsi, who
treated their patients by sucking the bitten part
until it swelled. Et ita, fere semper sanabatur
Mger, certo periturus si hac ope abesset *.
Suetonius informs us that when Augustus saw
the body of Cleopatra, who had but just expired
from the bite of a serpent, he ordered the Psylli
and the Marsi to suck her wounds, hoping that
the fair victim might still be restored to life
through their exertions.
Redi in his treatment of the bite of a viper
follows Celsus to the letter f .
Boerhaave under the head Antidota observes,
that poison may be removed from the body by
* Boerhaave, Antidota.
t Redi, De Viperis.
88 ON ABSORPTION.
various means. Formerly, he says, that which
was deposited in wounds was sucked out by the
Psylli and the Marsi. In our days, ' hodie per
cucurbitulas magnets, validas, scepe renovatas.' He
was one of the last of the mechanical physiolo-
gists, and looked upon many of the pheenomena
of organized matter as more immediately de-
pendant upon physical causes.
The knowledge acquired about this time of
the structure and course of the lymphatics ; the
opposition set up against the mathematical and
mechanical physicians by the supporters of vital
action ; but above all, the absence of direct ex-
periment upon the living animal, produced a total
change in the doctrines of external absorption.
The lymphatics were now denominated the ab-
sorbents exclusively, whilst the sanguiferous veins
were refused all participation in this function.
The consequent revolution which the treatment
of poisoned wounds underwent was equally
striking. The cupping-glass was laid aside as
too mechanical, or if employed, was considered
merely as a counter-irritant. The lymphatics of
the part had taken up the poison by a peculiar
ON ABSORPTION. 89
vital principle inherent in them. Their action
must, therefore, be modified. Stimulants must
be given to induce the exhalants to throw off the
morbific matter. Irritants must be applied to
the wound. That unlucky medical adage, ubi
stimulus ibi fluxus, was found peculiarly appli-
cable. The discharge was to be kept up by
every possible means, whilst the vitality of the
absorbents was to be destroyed by caustics. The
knife and the heated iron were sometimes used,
but more frequently by the unlettered cow-leech
than by the learned physician.
Messrs. Vellerme and Trolliet, in a long article
on Rage in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales
which is highly creditable to the talents and re-
search of these physicians, do not give a single
case in which cupping was tried, although they
quote this plan of cure from the ancients. In
short, from the days of Celsus to the present, I
have not been able to meet with any record of a
fair trial having been given to the application of
the vacuum, either to the bite of the rabid dog
or venomous snake, although every author who
90 ON ABSORPTION.
has alluded to either of these subjects invariably
mentions cupping, but merely as a secondary re-
medy.
M. Orfila, whose profound researches in toxi-
cology justly entitle him to be considered as the
highest modern authority in this department of
medical science, in enumerating the preventative
measures proper to be adopted in the treatment
of the bite of a mad dog, recommends cupping
the part, for the purpose of promoting a discharge
of blood. In his directions for the treatment of
a recent viper-bite, the cupping-glass is not men-
tioned.
Neither M. Majendie nor his followers appear
to have founded any new mode of treatment
upon the doctrine of imbibition, as applicable to
the prevention or cure of traumatic poisoning.
How far the injection of tepid water into the
veins of animals labouring under hydrophobia
may be conducive to their recovery, or whether
this practice be connected with the physiology of
living imbibition, I confess myself unable to de-
clare.
ON ABSORPTION. 91
In this rapid and imperfect sketch of the his-
tory of external absorption and traumatic poison-
ing, there are three epochs.
The first extending from the times of Machaon
to those of Celsus. The second from Celsus to
Boerhaave. The third from Boerhaave to the
present time.
In the records of the first period we find but
few and imperfect traces of any theory of absorp-
tion, while the treatment of poisoned wounds was
hidden and disfigured by the religious absurdities
of the day.
The second period is marked at its commence-
ment by sounder physiological views, as to the
manner in which the poison deposited in a wound
was carried into the system. The blood-vessels
were considered the channels through which this
transport from the surface to the centre took
place. To these vessels, therefore, the curative
and preventive treatment were chiefly directed.
Some of the most futile and pernicious admi-
nistrations however still clung to the practice
even of the wisest physicians of these times
92 ON ABSORPTION.
such as the re-application of the poisoned wea-
pon to the wound which it had already inflicted*.
Yet, notwithstanding this, and many other modes
of treatment equally inefficient and absurd, the
plan of cure pursued by Celsus in cases of
wounds inflicted by poisoned weapons, or by
rabid or venomous animals, was beyond all com-
parison more successful than the mode of treat-
ment adopted by the best physicians of the pre-
sent day.
A failure in preventing the ill effects of the bite
of a venomous serpent when suction had been
continuously employed was considered so re-
markable, that iElianus, who wrote in the time
of Adrian, took the trouble to record, that a
mountebank was bitten in the arm by a serpent
(aspide,) which he was exhibiting in the Forum
during the eedileship of Pompeius Rufus, and
that though he sucked the wound himself, he died
in three days, his gums and palate having first
mortified. It was not the death of the man, but
* Vulneri cuspis quod intulit hoc prodest ; veneno cuspis
illita prodest quibus serpens venerium intulit. — Galen.
ON ABSORPTION. 93
the failure of suction in preventing it, that ren-
dered the event remarkable *.
As to hydrophobia Celsus expressly states,
that it only occurs when the wound inflicted by
the dog has not been attended to; ubi parum
occur sum est.
t The following passage from Celsus will account perhaps
for the poor mountebank's, misfortune : — " Illud quoque ne
interimat ante debebit attendere, ne quod in gingivis palatove
aliave parte oris, ulcus habeat. — Lib. 5, cap. ii.
94 ON ABSORPTION.
Chapter II.
Can Absorption, strictly speaking, be called a Vital
Function? — Definition of Absorption — Why it cannot
take place in Vacuo — Its Causes — Proofs that Absorp-
tion of Poisons does not take place in Vacuo.
Two of the most powerful and most general
agents of nature are gravitation and pressure.
Their influence is never for a moment suspended
either with regard to living or inert matter : we
can conceive no state of organization capable of
maintaining an existence independent of their
power.
Motion is the effect which renders their opera-
tion as a cause perceptible to us. Inert matter
moves in obedience to the impulse communicated
by them, without offering any resistance of its
own by which this impulse can be directed or
modified.
Living matter is also moved, but under certain
ON ABSORPTION. 95
circumstances it possesses the faculty of modi-
fying the impulse of either or both of these
agents, according to the organization peculiar to
its mode of existence. The business then of or-
gans as far as relates to these powers, appears to
be, to favour one or other of them, to combine,
to divide, to oppose them to each other, in short,
to modify their operation,
Each organ finds in one or both of these
agents, an assistant or antagonist according to
the necessity of the action to be performed. Thus
the true antagonist to the soaring eagle's wing is
gravitation. The fulcrum upon which the wing
acts is atmospheric pressure. When the bird
stoops upon his prey gravitation is no longer an
antagonist, but a powerful assistant to his de-
scent.
When a liquid flows from a compressible tube,
or from one open at both ends, if the tube be
perpendicularly placed both pressure and gra-
vitation will favour the discharge of the fluid,
whilst pressure alone will oppose it ; but as the
favouring and opposing pressures are equal gra-
vitation will be unresisted.
96
ON ABSORPTION.
If pressure be removed from the upper end of
this tube, then the gravitation alone of the liquid
will be opposed by pressure alone at the lower
or discharging end. But as the pressure of the
atmosphere is nearly the same at all times, whilst
the gravitation of the liquid varies in direct pro-
portion to its specific gravity and the height of
its own column, if the sum of these be less than
that of the opposing pressure, then the liquid
will flow out at the upper opening of the tube,
where as pressure has ceased to exist, gravita-
tion alone can offer resistance to the pressure
from below.
It is evident that the liquid would have con-
tinued to flow out at the lower opening of the
tube, if gravitation and pressure had been al-
lowed to remain in their natural relations towards
each other ; and that to alter these relations in
the manner described some third power must
have been put in operation. But as inert matter
does not per se possess this power, although it
is capable with its assistance of exhibiting the
phenomena just mentioned, it follows that the
peculiar and distinguishing privilege of organized
ON ABSORPTION. 97
matter, as far as regards these two great agents,
does not consist in the phenomena resulting from
their modification, but in the self-moved action
of the organs by which this modification is pro-
duced.
If this view be correct, neither the flowing of
the blood through the veins towards the thorax,
in direct violation of the immutable law of gra-
vitation, nor the transport of matter by means
of this fluid, from the surface to the centre of
the living animal, can, strictly speaking, be called
a vital function, because both are the effects of the
modification of pressure, an agent common to
all matter. It is that action, or set of actions, by
which the modification is produced, to which the
epithet vital should be attached; because this
action is peculiar to living matter possessing an
organization such as we at present contemplate.
Thus the "word absorption representing, in the
language of Physiology, the transport of matter
from the surface to the centre of a living animal,
must be admitted with the same limitations as
the word suction, conveying, in the language of
Physics, the idea of a liquid forced by atmosphe-
H
98 ON ABSORPTION.
ric pressure into a cavity, where, by expansion
or otherwise, a tendency to a relative vacuum
had been established. Both these terms having
been applied to the phenomena connected with
them, long before the pressure of the air was
known to be the cause of these phenomena, must,
in the present state of our knowledge, be con-
sidered as equally wanting in philosophical pre-
cision, and equally imperfect representatives of
the ideas intended to be expressed.
Absorption then, as exercised by living ani-
mals, in its physical acceptation, and with re-
ference to matter external to these animals, is
the transport of that matter from their surface
towards their centre.
According to this definition, when a liquid,
such as coloured water placed in an open vessel,
mounts against its own gravity through a glass
tube having one end immersed in the liquid, and
the other inserted into the cavity of one of the
great veins within the thorax, the ascent of the
liquid, and its flowing into the animal's heart, is
a true and genuine act of absorption, rendered
visible by means of the glass tube, the outer end
ON ABSORPTION. 99
of which represents the open mouths of the ab-
sorbing veins.
This ascent, or absorption, of the liquid being
placed under the influence of atmospheric pressure
exclusively, as has been already proved by the
experiments detailed in the Memoir on the pro-
gression of the blood in the veins, it is evident
that, if the liquid were placed under a vacuum,
instead of being exposed to the air, it would not
flow upwards in the tube, but, on the contrary,
would return, provided that the pressure around
the extremity in contact with the liquid were
rendered less than that around the extremity in-
serted in the cavity of the vein within the thorax.
Thus the immediate causes or circumstances
indispensable to the accomplishment of absorp-
tion are reduced to two, vis.
1. A free communication between the matter
to be absorbed and the thoracic cavities.
2. Atmospheric pressure, modified by the ex-
pansion of these cavities around one end of the
communicating tubes, while the same pressure is
free and undisturbed around the other end.
With these data, and taking for granted that
H 2
100 ON ABSORPTION.
the sanguiferous or lymphatic veins, or both, are
the organs of absorption, their communication
with the thorax being exactly the same as that of
the tube in the experiment just alluded to, it was
natural to presume that the absorption, or trans-
port of any substance, (a poison, for example,
deposited in a wound of a living animal,) could
not take place if the points of contact of the ab-
sorbing surface and of the matter to be absorbed,
were placed under the influence of a vacuum.
To prove the truth or error of this induction, I
procured different kinds of poison, the fatal ac-
tivity of which had been well ascertained ; such
as prussic acid concentrated, pure strychnine,
upas tieute, white oxyde of arsenic, &c. I sa-
tisfied myself by repeated trials, that six drops
of the acid introduced into the cellular tissue of
the thigh of an adult rabbit, would kill him in
two minutes- — that a grain of pure strychnine de-
posited in a recent wound of the same animal
will produce death in from five to seven minutes,
and that a grain of upas tieutS will destroy him in
ten or twelve minutes.
I experimented with these and other poisons
ON ABSORPTION. 101
upon rabbits and dogs, having almost always two
animals placed under exactly the same circum-
stances, except that the piston cupping-glass was
applied to one, whilst the other was abandoned
to his fate. The animal abandoned invariably
perished within the periods stated. The animal,
to which the vacuum was applied, never shewed
the slightest symptom of poisoning, although the
deleterious matter remained in contact with the
wounded surface during the space of an hour,
two hours, and even so long as five hours conse-
cutively.
When the poison was conveyed by means of a
tube under the integuments to some distance from
the opening by which it had been introduced, if
the cupping-glass was applied to the sound skin,
corresponding to the spot where the poison had
been deposited (the wound being without the
bounds of the vacuum), not only was there no
indication that any portion of the poison had been
absorbed during the application of the glass, but
even after it was taken off the animal continued
for one or even two hours to carry imbedded in
his cellular tissue a dose which would infallibly
102 ON ABSORPTION.
have destroyed him in a few minutes had the cup-
ping-glass not been previously applied.
In these cases, when I waited for the appear-
ance of the tetanic convulsions, the reapplication
of the glass immediately suspended them, and
the removal of the poison through an incision in
the integuments saved the animal.
"When I applied the cupping-glass over the
opening made in the integuments for the purpose
of introducing the tube, leaving the poison under
the skin outside the bounds of the vacuum, no
absorption took place during half or three-quar-
ters of an hour, but as soon as the glass was re-
moved absorption began.
If, during the application of the glass, I made
an incision between its edge and the point where
the poison was placed under the integuments,
absorption went on as if no vacuum were applied.
103
Chapter III.
Experiments upon External Absorption — Remarks by M.
Andral — Conclusions of M. Laennec's Report.
First Experiment.
On the 12tli of August, 1825, at nine o'clock in
the morning, in presence of the Rev. Mr. Lang-
ley, one of the censors of the University of
Oxford, of Dr. Wilson, of the same univer-
sity, and of M. Miriadeck Laennec, M.D. of
Paris, I took two adult rabbits of the same size,
and equally healthy. A small wound was made
in the skin and cellular tissue of the outside of
the left thigh of each. These were filled with
precisely equal quantities of impure strychnine ;
one immediately, the other after an interval of
one minute.
After waiting forty-five minutes the rabbits ex-
hibited no other signs of poisoning than some
convulsive movements of the muscles of the jaws.
104 ON ABSORPTION.
The little wounds were therefore enlarged, and
additional portions of strychnine were introduced.
Fifteen minutes after the second application, the
two rabbits were seized, at the same moment,
with convulsions of the most decided tetanic cha-
racter, which threw their whole frames into the
most violent agitation. The spasms lasted some
seconds, and returned almost immediately in the
rabbit that had been first poisoned, but not so
soon in the other.
The piston cupping-glass was now fixed over
the wound of the rabbit that had suffered the two
convulsions. The other was abandoned to his
fate, and died in fifty-five minutes after the second
application of the strychnine, having suffered re-
peated attacks of tetanic spasm and opisthotonos,
each exceeding the last in violence and duration.
The rabbit, upon whose wound the cupping-
glass had been applied, being placed upon his
side, made from time to time some slight strug-
gles, but owing to the forced position in which he
was necessarily held, we could not decide whe-
ther these movements were convulsive, or merely
voluntary.
ON ABSORPTION. 105
When the glass, after having been kept on for
three-quarters of an hour was removed, and after
the wound had been washed, and the rabbit set
at liberty, he was seized with a violent attack of
true opisthotonos: this lasted about a minute
and a half. We all thought him dead, but he re-
covered with great rapidity, rose upon his legs,
and after three-quarters of an hour ate and ran
about as if nothing had happened. On the 15th
he was again exhibited to the same gentlemen in
perfect health, and without having suffered any
other attack that I am aware of.
Having read before the Academy of Medicine
of Paris a short note containing the details of the
above, and some other experiments of a similar
nature, that learned body did me the honour to
appoint a committee from amongst its members
to witness and report upon the repetition of them,
and also upon the view I had taken of their phy-
siology.
The committee consisted of the professors Laen-
nec and Orfila, with M. Adelon, secretary to the
106 ON ABSORPTION.
Section of Medicine, and author of the work en-
titled Pkysiologie de I'Homme.
I met these gentlemen at the hospital of La
Charite, in M. Laennec's amphitheatre, on the
17th of August, 1825, and performed the follow-
ing experiments. There were present, besides
the members of the committee, the celebrated
chemists M. Pelletier, Robinet, and Petroz, M.
Billery, professor of medicine, at Grenoble, and
many other physicians and pupils, foreign and
French.
Second Experiment.
Assisted by M. Petroz, to whose talents and
address I am largely indebted, I took three adult
rabbits, and introduced into a wound made in the
thigh of each a grain of pure strychnine, brought
to the meeting by M. Pelletier, and prepared in
his laboratory.
The first rabbit was dead between the fourth
and fifth minute. The second rabbit had the
cupping-glass applied immediately after the
introduction of the poison — the third rabbit
at the end of the fourth minute from the depo-
sition of the strychnine in his wound, and after
ON ABSORPTION. 107
he had already suffered two attacks of tetanic
spasm.
When the glasses were removed after half an
hour's application to each, the animals seemed
perfectly free from all effects of the poison. The
wounds were dressed with sticking-plaster after
the poison had been carefully washed off.
Two hours precisely after the removal of the
cupping-glass from the wound of the third rabbit,
he was seized with convulsions. They yielded
immediately to the reapplication of the glass,
which was left on for twenty minutes. Neither
of the rabbits suffered any other attack, and con-
tinued in apparent good health.
Third Experiment.
At the suggestion of M. Orfila (who seemed to
think that the salutary effects of the vacuum might
be owing to its removing the poison from the
surface of the wound), eight grains of the white
oxyde of arsenic were introduced deeply under
the skin, and into the cellular substance of the
thigh of a middle-sized dog. The edges of the
108 ON ABSORPTION.
wound were firmly united by suture over the
arsenic. The same operation was performed upon
another dog of the same size, and with the same
precautions. For my own satisfaction, I placed
the same quantity of arsenic superficially in a
wound made at the same point in the thigh of a
third dog of equal weight : no suture was used.
Three-quarters of an hour after the insertion of
the poison into the thigh of the first dog, the pis-
ton cupping-glass was applied. The other two
dogs were left to nature.
The vacuum over the wound of the first dog
was kept up for five successive hours, during
which time the only symptom he shewed of hav-
ing absorbed any portion of the arsenic was a
discharge of saliva rather more copious than natu-
ral during the first hour. When the glass was
removed, and the stitches cut, the poison was
found at the bottom of the wound. The loose
skin was cut away, the parts were carefully
washed, and the dog set at liberty. He was in
perfect health, and continued so for three days,
when he was turned into the street.
The increased discharge of saliva was noticed
ON ABSORPTION. 109
in both the other dogs. The second whined, and
became very uneasy at the end of the first hour
after the introduction of the arsenic. Nausea,
vomiting, and purging, with tenesmus, came on
at the beginning of the third hour. Spasms, con-
vulsions, paralysis of the hinder legs supervened ;
in short, when we removed the glass from the
first dog his case was hopeless : he died in the
night.
The symptoms in the third dog came on much
earlier after the poisoning, were more intense,
and succeeded each other with greater rapidity.
According to the accounts of the persons left in
charge, he died some hours before the second dog.
The following experiment was instituted with
a view to -observe the effects of the vacuum not
only in preventing absorption, but in mitigating
or arresting the symptoms peculiar to the poison
applied.
Fourth Experiment.
First rabbit. — Six drops of hydrocyanic acid
were poured into a small wound in the integu-
110 ON ABSORPTION.
ments of the thigh. At the end of the second
minute the animal was dead.
Second rabbit.— -Six drops of the same acid were
poured into a wound exactly similar to the last.
The piston cupping-glass was applied over the
wound forthwith. At the end of eleven minutes
the rabbit having manifested no symptom of poi-
soning, the glass was removed in order to observe
what might happen. In one minute after this the
animal was seized with opisthotonos of so decided
a character, accompanied by total cessation of
the respiratory movements, that the word mort
was already written down by M. Adelon ; when,
as he states in his notes of the experiment, " M.
Barry reapplied the piston cupping-glass. In
proportion as the sucking effects of the vacuum
became more decided, the respiration which
had ceased returned, the tetanic spasm became
less intense, and more distant in its attacks. At
the end of four minutes the rabbit appeared to be
perfectly free from the effects of the poison."
Sixteen minutes after this the cupping-glass was
again removed. Two minutes after its removal
opisthotonos supervened. The glass was a third
ON ABSORPTION. Ill
time applied, when the spasm immediately sub-
sided. In twelve minutes the glass had fallen off.
The convulsions did not return, and the animal
continued in perfect health for many days, until he
became the subject of another experiment.
Fifth Experiment.
One grain of upas tieute was introduced through
the barrel of a quill, to the distance of about an.
inch, between the skin and muscles of the thigh
of an adult rabbit, where it was deposited, with-
out its having touched the sides of the wound.
The little incision through which the quill entered
was stitched up, and the cupping-glass was ap-
plied upon the sound skin over the poison.
No symptom appeared during -two hours that
the glass remained fixed, nor for two hours after
it had been removed. The rabbit ran about,
fed, and appeared in perfect health. At the ex-
piration of this time he was seized with tetanos.
The glass was immediately reapplied : the convul-
sions ceased instantly. After a few minutes ap-
plication the glass was removed, the upas taken
out through an incision made for the purpose, and
the parts stained by the solution of the poison were
112 ON ABSORPTION.
cut away. The wound was washed and sewed
up : the rabbit lived, and did well.
This experiment was repeated with this differ-
ence, that the cupping-glass was applied over the
external wound, leaving the upas under the skin
outside its boundary. No symptom occurred
during three-quarters of an hour that the glass
remained on, but the moment it was removed
the animal was seized with convulsions. These,
however, were arrested, and the animal was saved
as before.
A third rabbit, poisoned exactly as the two
former, and for which nothing whatever was
done, died within the eleventh minute after the
insertion of the upas.
M. Petroz, with his accustomed ingenuity, who
repeated the second variation of this experiment,
using hydrocyanic acid instead of upas, reports,
that he saved the animal without reopening or
washing the part where the poison had been de-
posited ; and that notwithstanding the tetanic
convulsions had come on before he could apply
ON ABSORPTION. 113
the cupping-glass, he succeeded in saving the
animal, by frequently working the piston, vola-
tilizing the acid, and expelling the whole of it
through the upper opening of the exhausting sy-
ringe, where its characteristic odour was very
marked during the operation.
Professor Laennec, who witnessed the whole
of these proceedings, drew up a report, in which,
after recapitulating the principal experiments, he
comes to the following conclusions * : —
" 1st. Your committee is therefore of opinion
that Dr. Barry's experiments (being the con-
tinuation of those by which he has already endea-
voured to prove that the venous circulation is
carried on principally under the influence of at-
mospheric pressure) establish, in the most incon-
testible manner, the influence of this agent on the
circulation of the absorbent vessels, the propo-
sition which the author sought to demonstrate.
" 2ndly. That the knowledge of this important
fact may be considered as a real discovery, not-
* Vide Appendix, No, 4.
114 ON ABSORPTION.
withstanding the theoretical views and vague ideas
entertained by some authors, and the empirical
administration of suction to poisoned wounds, a
practice more common with half-civilized people
than more polished nations.
" 3rdly. Your committee proposes that the
thanks of the academy be addressed to Dr. Barry,
that he be invited to repeat his experiments upon
the venom of the viper, that his memoir be in-
serted amongst those of the academy, and that
his name be added to the list of its foreign mem-
bers.
(Signed) Laennec, D. M.
This report having being read at the academy
by M. Adelon, it was proposed, that as Messrs.
Orfila and Laennec were then both absent from.
Paris, some new members should be added to
the committee, and that further experiments
should be instituted for the purpose of ascertain-
ing, if possible, the following points, viz. :
1st. Whether the cupping-glass placed else-
where than over the poisoned wound, or its imme-
ON ABSORPTION. 115
diate neighbourhood, would, by acting as a coun-
ter-irritant, prevent absorption, or relieve the
symptoms caused by it.
2ndly. Whether the cupping-glass acts upon
the symptoms by recalling to the surface any por-
tion of the matter already absorbed.
3rdly. How long its application may be delayed
after the insertion of a given poison, and yet pre-
vent the appearance of the symptoms.
Accordingly, M. Pariset, perpetual secretary
to the academy, M. Andral, Jun., and M. Sega-
las, with M. Adelon, were named as a new com-
mittee. In their presence, and at their sugges-
tion, the following experiments were performed.
The details are literally translated from the
notes taken by M. Andral on the spot.
Sixth Experiment.
" One grain of upas tieute was introduced into
the subcutaneous cellular tissue of the thigh of a
rabbit, the wound was closed by a suture. Te-
tanos came on at the eleventh minute ; at the end
of the twelfth minute death."
I 2
116 ON ABSORPTION.
Seventh Experiment.
" One grain of upas tieute was introduced into
the thigh of a rabbit as above. The cupping-
glass was applied one minute after, and left on
twenty-four minutes. About two hours after the
glass had been removed symptoms of tetanos
came on. Reapplication of the glass for ten
minutes — immediate cessation of the convulsions
— poison removed from the wound — parts washed
— animal restored to health."
Eighth Experiment.
" Introduction of a grain of upas into the thigh
of an adult rabbit as above. Three minutes after
the glass was applied, and left on twenty-four
minutes. Poison removed, wound carefully wash-
ed : no symptoms."
Ninth Experiment
" One grain of upas introduced as before into
the thigh of a full-grown rabbit. Six minutes
ON ABSORPTION. 117
after the cupping-glass was applied, and left on
twenty-four minutes. Wound treated as in last
experiment : no symptoms."
Tenth Experiment.
"The last experiment repeated upon another
rabbit. Glass applied ten minutes after the intro-
duction of the poison, that is, less than one
minute before the period when the symptoms of
poisoning began to appear in the first rabbit. The
glass was left on twenty-four minutes. No symp-
toms: wound treated as before."
Eleventh Experiment.
" Injection of six drops of hydrocyanic acid ( au
quart J into the cellular tissue of the thigh of an
adult rabbit. In one minute convulsions, in two
death."
Twelfth Experiment.
" Similar injection in another rabbit. Convul-
sions rather before the end of the first minute.
118
ON ABSORPTION.
Application of the glass : immediate cessation of
the spasms, and permanent restoration to health,
as in the other experiments."
Thirteenth Experiment.
" Introduction of four grains of upas tieute into
the thigh of a small dog. The piston cupping-
glass was applied at the same time to a similar
wound on the corresponding part of the opposite
thigh. Symptoms of poisoning at the end of
eight minutes : these soon acquired such a degree
of intensity that the animal was upon the very
point of expiring. In this state of extreme suffer-
ing the cupping-glass was removed to the poi-
soned wound, and the vacuum established. In-
stantly the symptoms were alleviated. The ani-
mal was truly recalled to life ; but from time to
time he still suffered slight attacks of tetanos.
After a quarter of an hour's application the glass
was removed, and the animal appeared restored
to health*."
* This animal was found dead some hours after the glass
had been removed.
ON ABSORPTION. 119
Remarks by M. Andral.
" In this case the cupping-glass appears to
have moderated the symptoms by arresting all
further absorption of the poison ; but that which
was already in the circulation does not seem to
have been recalled to the surface of the wound,
because the symptoms continued, although miti-
gated ; unless we choose to suppose that the con-
tinuation of the convulsions was owing to the
impression already made upon the nervous sys-
tem. On the other hand, the animal economy
does not rid itself of deleterious substances so
promptly as is generally thought : this the follow-
ing experiment would seem to prove.1'
Fourteenth Experiment.
" One quarter of a grain of pure strychnine dis-
solved in two ounces of distilled water was in-
jected into the trachea of a middle-sized dog.
For several hours after the animal showed by the
stiffness of his limbs, and by a convulsive agi-
120 ON ABSORPTION.
tation from time to time, that he was still under
the influence of the poison."
Fifteenth Experiment.
" With a view to observe whether the cupping-
glass acted by bringing back to the surface any
portion of a substance introduced into the cellu-
lar tissue by injection, we injected into the sub-
cutaneous tissue of the inside of the thigh of a
dog about two drachms of a saturated solution of
the sulfate of soda. The wound was carefully
wiped, and the glass applied. After working the
piston a few times, we found the salt, by means
of a proper test, in the reddish liquid which the
pressure of the air had forced into the glass."
The above and many other analogous experi-
ments were repeated and varied before many
French and foreign physicians, but never ex-
hibited the slightest anomaly.
ON ABSORPTION. 121
Chapter IV.
Experiments upon the Bite of the Viper.
For the purpose of giving a more useful appli-
cation to this method of preventing poisoning by-
external absorption, I had several dogs and rab-
bits bitten by vipers, of which I had procured
a considerable number from Grenoble and Fon-
tainbleau. To the bites of some I applied the
cupping-glass, to the bites of others nothing; and
although the animals abandoned did not ulti-
mately perish, the results obtained by the com-
parison were precisely analogous, as far as re-
gards the symptoms, to those observed in the
preceding experiments, that is, the animals bitten
by one, two, and sometimes three vipers, when
the cupping-glass was applied for half an hour,
suffered no symptom whatever of constitutional
poisoning ; whilst those that were left to nature
122 ON ABSORPTION.
were invariably attacked with convulsions, stu-
por, and the dogs by vomiting.
Pigeons invariably perished from one bite of
the ordinary viper of Fontainbleau, exhibiting,
when left to nature, the commencement of the
fatal symptoms before the fifth minute ; but when
the cupping-glass was applied immediately after
the bite, they not only showed no signs of having
absorbed the venom while the glass remained on,
but eventually escaped when the treatment to be
noticed hereafter was adopted.
The local action of the viper's venom, men-
tioned by Fontana, so marked and so rapid in its
effects, seems to be concentrated by the cupping-
glass within its own bounds, particularly in dogs,
but is entirely prevented in rabbits. This differ-
ence is owing to the different density of the skins
of these animals. The vacuum sucks a reddish
serum in considerable quantity through the skin
of the latter, whilst very little or nothing is forced
through the skin of the former.
ON ABSORPTION. 123
Experiments made with living Vipers upon Dogs, Rabbits,
and Pigeons.
Sixteenth Experiment.
On the 29th of September, 1825, in Baron
Cuvier's anatomical laboratory, where, with his
usual condescension, he was kind enough to per-
mit me to avail myself of the talents and dex-
terity of M. Rousseau, Jun., one of his principal
preparators, a large viper was applied * to the
thigh of a half-grown weakly rabbit. The rep-
tile bit twice : a minute drop of blood marked
each puncture made by the fangs. One minute
after the bites the piston-glass was applied
upon the bitten part. M. Rousseau, who held
his eye close to the glass whilst I worked the
piston, observed a drop of transparent amber-
coloured liquid issue from each of the punctures.
This was followed by a considerable quantity of
* M. Rousseau applied the vipers by seizing them with a
long forceps behind the posterior projecting angles of the head,
and placing their nose in contact with the part intended to be
bitten : they never failed to bite as often as we wished.
124 ON ABSORPTION.
reddish serum, which rose into a thin froth, and
in fifteen minutes nearly filled the glass with its
large transparent bubbles. The vacuum was
kept up for thirty-five minutes. When the rabbit
was set at liberty he appeared to suffer no incon-
venience : the little wounds presented nothing
remarkable.
One hour after this rabbit had been bitten the
same viper was presented to the thigh of ano-
ther, which he bit twice also, drawing blood as
before. The second rabbit was larger and much
stronger than the first. A pale yellow spot was
noticed almost immediately around each punc-
ture made by the fangs. When the animal was
set at liberty the bitten leg appeared slightly
paralyzed. Ten minutes after the bite, the whole
integuments of the bitten part appeared livid.
Half an hour after, the lividity was intense, and
had extended to the circumference of half a
crown.
The next day an open gangrenous ulcer occu-
pied the whole of the livid circle, discharging a
fetid sanies. The leg and thigh were swelled.
Forty-eight hours after the bite, the ulcer was
ON ABSORPTION. 125
still open, but not so fetid. Seventy-two hours
after the bites, the ulcer looking healthy, the
limb reduced.
During all this time, the rabbit first bitten never
showed the slightest symptom of either local or
general poisoning. The second rabbit refused
his usual food during the first thirty hours after
he had been bitten, and looked dull.
Seventeenth Experiment.
On the 13th October M. Rousseau, with his
accustomed dexterity, applied two large fresh
vipers to the thigh of a middle-sized dog. The
part had been previously shaved. Each viper
bit twice with eagerness. Two minutes after
the first bite, a cupping-glass was applied over
the punctures. Dr. Edwards, who honoured
this experiment by his presence and assistance,
observed several drops of a yellowish-red fluid,
oozing from the little wounds inflicted by the
viper's teeth.
The glass remained fixed thirty minutes, and
was then removed. Some very slight scratches,
126 ON ABSORPTION.
which did not go through the skin, having been
made with a razor, the cupping-glass was again
fixed on, but the quantity of blood extracted did
not exceed a drachm and a half.
At the end of forty minutes from the com-
mencement, the glass was finally taken off, and
the part washed. Large livid spots were dis-
tinctly perceived around the wounds inflicted by
the fangs.
The dog did not appear to have suffered the
slightest inconvenience from having been bitten.
He ate and drank. Twenty-four hours after the
bite there was still no symptom either local or
general. On the second morning a gangrenous
eschar was found to occupy the whole of the in-
teguments which had been included in the cup-
ping-glass. The leg and thigh were swelled,
but the general health of the dog seemed unim-
paired. His lameness was scarcely perceptible ;
in short, the eschar was thrown off in a few
days, leaving a clean sore, which healed soon
after; and the animal recovered without any
other symptom than those mentioned.
ON ABSORPTION. 127
Eighteenth Experiment.
To ascertain whether the vipers used in this
experiment were really venemous, one of them
was presented to the breast of a young pigeon,
and suffered to bite once. Although this was
the third bite made by the reptile within an
hour, the bird showed symptoms of being affected
by the poison at the third minute, fell on his side
at the fifth, and died at the end of the twentieth
minute after he had been bitten.
Nineteenth Experiment.
Another dog of the same size as the subject
of Experiment No. 17, was also bitten by two
large vipers, and exactly in the same man-
ner. He showed strong symptoms of suffering
about the eighth minute after the bites, ut-
tered plaintive sharp cries, and became exces-
sively restless. At the fifteenth minute made
violent efforts to vomit ; vomited abundantly at
the twentieth ; then lay down upon his side at
128 ON ABSORPTION.
full length in a kind of stupor. In this state he
continued the whole of that day, refusing food
and drink.
Next morning the bitten leg was much swelled.
The parts livid ; ulceration already commencing.
The animal dull, dejected, and difficult to be
roused. After extensive gangrenous ulceration
he recovered, but very slowly, and was much
emaciated.
Twentieth Experiment.
On the 24th October two adult rabbits were
bitten, each by three vipers, and by each viper
three times. To one of these rabbits I applied
the cupping-glass, which was left on thirty mi-
nutes. In this as in No. 16, I observed a consi-
derable quantity of serous fluid ooze through the
skin, and afterwards expand into thin froth with
very large bubbles, filling the glass. I now dis-
sected out the skin and cellular substance which
had been included under the glass, applying the
vacuum again for ten minutes ; after which the
ON ABSORPTION. 129
wound was washed and the lips of it brought to-
gether by suture. The rabbit when set at liberty
appeared to be in perfect health.
The other rabbit had been left to his fate. On
the 25th, at five in the afternoon, the cupped rab-
bit was as well as if nothing had happened to him :
the wound in the thigh looking exactly as if it
had never been touched by a viper's tooth, and in-
clining to heal.
The rabbit that had been left to nature hung
his ears, and looked very dull : the bitten thigh
was much swelled, whilst a large gangrenous livid
phlyctena, filled with a thin sanies, occupied the
whole of the bitten part.
On the 27th, the cupped rabbit in excellent
health : the wound healing without any appear-
ance of gangrene. The phlyctena in the other
rabbit had degenerated into an extensive fetid
ulcer. This animal after much suffering finally
recovered.
Twenty-first Experiment.
In presence of M. Dumeril, professor of physi-
ology, a young pigeon was bitten twice over the
130
ON ABSORPTION.
pectoral muscle by a very large viper. The cup-
ping-glass was applied immediately after the se-
cond bite, and left on eight minutes only. Nothing
else was done. No symptoms of poisoning oc-
curred for fifteen minutes after the removal of the
glass, when the bird began to stagger. In a few
minutes he fell upon his side, his respiration be-
coming remarkably slow. This pigeon was dead
at the expiration of an hour and sixteen minutes
after the second bite. About fifteen minutes be-
fore his death, the cupping-glass was again ap-
plied, but produced no visible effect.
A second pigeon had been bitten by a very
small viper twice, exactly in the same place as
the first. Five minutes after the first bite he
showed the usual symptoms of poisoning, such as
inability to stand, falling on the bitten side, slight
convulsions. He died at the end of the fifty-fifth
minute from the first bite.
Dissection. — Upon examining the bitten parts
of both pigeons, the whole of the great, and a
large portion of the lesser pectoral muscles were
livid, tender, and almost decomposed in the pi-
geon that had not been cupped. The correspond-
ON ABSORPTION. 131
ing parts in the cupped pigeon were perfectly na-
tural, with the exception of two livid spots which
we traced around two distinct veins, into the
thorax. The intestines of both pigeons presented
traces of recent and active inflammation with livid
vascularity.
Fontana lays it down as a law, in poisoning by
the viper's venom, that the longer the animal has
survived the fatal bite, the more intense are the lividity
and decomposition of the bitten parts. In this expe-
riment the reverse was strikingly manifest.
Twenty-second Experiment.
On the 5th November, in Baron Cuvier's labo-
ratory, and in presence of Messrs. Rousseau,
father and son, a small-sized old dog was bitten
in the thigh by three vipers, and by each viper
three times. The reptiles had been previously
much excited. Three minutes after the first bite
the piston-cupping-glass was applied and kept at-
tached for fifteen minutes. It was then removed,
and the whole of the skin and cellular substance,
down to the muscle, which had been included,
within the vacuum, was removed by the knife. The
K2
132 ON ABSORPTION.
glass was again immediately applied over this
fresh wound, and kept on for fifteen minutes
longer. The parts were now carefully washed.
Some little bits of livid cellular substance were
removed. The lips of the wound were brought
together by suture, and the dog set at liberty.
Not the slightest symptom of poisoning appeared
about the animal. Two hours after his wounds
had been dressed, he escaped from the servant,
and ran with such vigour as to leave his pursuers
no chance of coming up with him.
Twenty -third Experiment.
On the same day M. Rousseau, junior, present-
ed a very large viper, which had been particu-
larly excited, to the bare breast of a young pigeon,
three-quarters grown. The viper bit deeply and
eagerly once. Both the little punctures made by
the fangs were marked, each by a small bloody
stain. The piston-cupping-glass was applied forth-
with. Two amber-coloured drops were now seen
to issue from the little wounds already noticed,
and were very soon followed by minute quantities
of very dark-coloured blood. The glass was kept
ON ABSORPTION. 133
on fifteen minutes. The livid parts around the
little punctures were now dissected out. A gan-
grenous phlyctena had already formed, contain-
ing a thin ichor. After the infected parts had been
removed, the glass was again put on for ten mi-
nutes. Again the glass was removed, and a small
portion of muscle, or rather of a livid vein run-
ning into the muscular flesh, was dissected out.
Not the slightest symptom of poisoning appeared.
The pigeon walked upright and seemed in perfect
health.
9th November. — The pigeon has continued to
enjoy good health, and was this day shown to
M. Rousseau. The following is his note : —
" J'ai vu le pigeon que nous avons fait mordre
le samedi cinq de ce mois. Ce meme pigeon est
tres bien portant le neuf. Au Jardin du Roi, le
9 Novembre, 1825."
Fontana states that amputation of the pigeon's
leg three or four seconds after it has been bitten by
a viper, saves the animal ; but if the operation be
delayed one minute, however high above the bite
it may be performed, instead of saving the ani-
mal, it hastens his death.
134
ON ABSORPTION,
CONCLUSIONS.
From these experiments, and from the uniformity
of their results, we may consider the following
facts as proved : —
First, — That neither sound nor wounded parts
of the surface of a living animal can absorb when
placed under a vacuum.
Second. — That the application of the vacuum by
means of a piston-cupping-glass placed over the
points of contact of the absorbing surface, and
the poison which is in the act of being absorbed,
arrests or mitigates the symptoms caused by the
poison *.
Third. — That the application of a cupping-glass
for half an hour deprives the vessels of the part
over which it had been applied of their absorb-
ing faculty, during the hour or two immediately
succeeding the removal of the glass f.
Fourth. — That the pressure of the air forces
into the vacuum, even through the skin, a portion
of the matter introduced into the cellular tissue
* Vide Exp. No. 4. t Vide Exp. No. 5.
ON ABSORPTION. 135
by injection ; that is, if the skin of the animal be
not too dense, as in the dog. (Exps. 16, 20.)
From these facts we again arrive at the con
elusions already established by the experiments
detailed in Part I., viz., —
1st. That the taking up of matter from the sur-
face by the sanguiferous and lymphatic veins, and
the progression towards the heart of the contents
of these vessels, are placed under the influence of
atmospheric pressure, in all animals possessing
thoracic cavities, and exercising over them the
power of alternate contraction and dilatation
around that point to which the centripetal current
of their circulation is directed.
2d. That, as the veins and lymphatics communi-
cate with the thoracic cavities nearly in the same
manner, the cardiac ends of both must be exempt
from atmospheric pressure when the thorax is ex-
panded, and therefore the pressure on the surface
and extremities of these vessels being unresisted
at this moment, except by gravitation, must not
only press their contents upwards, but also force
matter from abroad into their open mouths, or
136 ON ABSORPTION.
porous sides, when stript of their more dense
coverings.
3rd. That as the height of the column ot lymph
exceeds that of the column of blood in the lower
cava, by the distance from the lower point of the
right auricle to the upper part of the subclavian
vein in man, and as the course of the lymph is
more tortuous and indirect (from passing through
glands) than the course of the venous blood ; it
follows, that the velocity of the transport of mat-
ter from the surface to the centre, must be less in
the lymphatic, than the sanguiferous veins, and
that the comparative quantity transported by the
two sets of vessels must be influenced by the cir-
cumstances already noted, and by the relative
capacity of the vessels themselves. The differ-
ence in the specific gravities of blood and lymph
should, perhaps, be also taken into calculation.
4th. That as imbibition, transudation, or passive soak-
ing of a part in a liquid may take place in vacuo,
neither can be the agent which induces or com-
pels matter deposited on the surface to penetrate
into the cavities of the veins ; for although the
ON ABSORPTION. 137
cupping-glass may arrest the current of the circu-
lation in the smaller vessels during the period of
its application, and even for some time after its
removal, yet if imbibition could force the poison,
which had been lying in the wound for hours,
into their tubes, the washing of the part after
taking off the glass would not save the animal
from the effects of a substance which with the
simple contact of the atmosphere would have
killed him in a few minutes.
138 ON ABSORPTION.
Chapter V.
Comparative Absorbing Powers of the Tissues. — Morbid
Poisons. — Contagion and Infection.
Seeing, then, that atmospheric pressure favour-
ably modified, and a free communication with the
thoracic cavities, are the two indispensable re-
quisites to enable any part to accomplish the
function of absorption, we might a priori conclude,
that the absorbing powers of the different tissues
stand in direct proportion i —
1st. To the pressure to which their veins are
exposed.
2nd. To the freedom of communication with the
thoracic cavities.
3rd. To the permeability of the mouths and
coats of the veins.
4th. To the number of the veins.
Accordingly we find that the membrane or tis-
sue in which the air-cells of the lungs are formed
absorbs with the greatest rapidity, because it
unites in the most perfect degree the above con-
ON ABSORPTION. 139
ditions. Its veins are the most numerous. Their
communication with the central cavity of the
thorax is the shortest and most direct. Their
coats are the most pervious ; whilst their contents
are forced forward by the whole pressure of the
air rushing down the trachea during inspiration,
increased by rarefaction and the resistance of the
bronchia? and air-cells.
Twenty -fourth Experiment.
One grain of alcoholic extract of nux vomica,
dissolved in two ounces of distilled water, and
injected through the trachea into the lungs of a
dog, produced tetanic spasm of the limbs and
opisthotonos within the tenth second from the
commencement of the injection, and death in less
than two minutes. He breathed freely after the
syringe was removed.
A similar quantity of the same liquid was
injected through a stop-cock, which had been
previously fitted into the trachea of another dog,
and the stopper was turned the moment the
140 ON ABSORPTION.
injection was completed. The symptoms came
on some seconds latter. Opening the stop-cock,
and allowing the animal to breathe, did not pro-
tract his existence.
Twenty-fifth Experiment.
One ounce of alcohol was injected into the
jugular vein, towards the heart, of a full-grown
fox-hound. In a few minutes he appeared to be
profoundly intoxicated. Half an hour after this
operation, when the animal began to recover, but
whilst he was still breathing slowly, as if apoplec-
tic, four grains of spirituous extract of nux vomica,
dissolved in six ounces of distilled water, were
injected into his lungs, through an opening made
in the trachea*. Ten seconds after the completion
of the injection, he was seized with strong tetanic
convulsions. At the end of the third minute he
appeared to be quite dead ; at the fifth minute
respiration returned, and with it the convulsions.
Each convulsion pulled back his head, stretched
out all his limbs stiff and separate, and lasted ex-
actly during the act of inspiration. In expiration
ON ABSORPTION. 141
the spasm relaxed, but invariably returned with
each inspiration. This coincidence of the tetanic
spasms with inspiration continued six minutes,
the spasms becoming more and more distant as
the respiration became slower, until death closed
the scene.
At the opposite extremity, of the scale of
absorbing tissues stand the osseous, the fibro-
cartilaginous, the epidermoid. In these there is
no absorption, although there may be imbibition.
Fontana could never succeed in producing any
effect by the application of poisons to the bare
insulated nerves of living animals.
Between the extremes of the scale are ranged
the subcutaneous cellular tissue, the visceral mu-
cous*, the serous, and other tissues lining cavities.
The conjunctiva absorbs freely, because its
vessels are numerous, their coats thin, and ex-
posed to full pressure.
* The peculiarities attached to the absorbing powers of this
tissue are reserved for a separate paper.
142 ON ABSORPTION.
Pliny the Elder has recorded a very curious
observation with regard to the membrane lining
the female parts of generation*, and although it
is calculated to throw the most important light
upon a very interesting point of legal medicine, I
am not aware that it has been noticed by any
writer upon that subject.
These experiments account for the communi-
cation of disease without contact. The infective
matter of small-pox is more abundantly and more
fatally taken into the system by breathing the
atmosphere of the variolous, than by inoculation
— the plague, by inhaling the effluvia of the pest-
house. In short, whatever poison is capable of
being suspended or dissolved in the air as a men-
struum, must inevitably pass into the blood of
those who respire this air thus infected. " Qui
* Cum constat omnium venenorum ocyssimum esse aconi-
tuma. Tactis quoque genitalibus fceminini sexus animalium,
eodem die inferre mortem. Hoc fuit venenum, quo interemptas
dormientes, a Calpurnio Bestia, uxores, Marcus Caecilius ac-
cusator objecit. Hinc ilia atrox peroratio ejus in digitum. —
Plinivs Secundus, Hist. Nat. lib. xxvii.
a Aconitum, supposed to be a compound similar to the
hunting-poison of the Gauls.
ON AHSORPTION. 143
cum non respirare non possunt, contagium miseri,
evadere nequeunt*.''
Certain states of the atmosphere connected
with heat, moisture, agitation, electricity, &c, may
enable it to hold in suspension a greater or a less
proportion of morbific matter. The quantity ab-
sorbed by those who respire it must stand in
direct relation to the quantity thus applied to the
mucous surface of their lungs.
1st. Some poisons are incapable of being dis-
solved in the atmosphere, at least in sufficient
abundance to produce their usual effects upon
man. Such are the vaccine virus, and, generally,
all those peculiar to the brute creation.
2dly. Some poisons cannot be sufficiently con-
centrated to affect the system through any other
surface than that of the air-cells of the lungs.
Such are the deleterious gases and effluvia.
3dly. Some are capable of infecting through all
vascular tissues, but most fatally through the
lungs, owing, perhaps, to the greater extent of
surface to which they are there applied, and to
* Galen, 5a. 9G G.
144 ON ABSORPTION. ,
the other circumstances just noticed. Such are
the virus of small-pox and plague.
The specific morbid poisons of the first and
second classes are limited in their effects to cer-
tain surfaces. Those of the third class are unli-
mited. None, however, can communicate dis-
ease, even supposing all other things favourable
to its developement, without the existence of one
condition, indispensable alike in all cases, viz., the
contact of the poison with the surface through
which it is to pass into the circulation.
But to bring about this contact between the
lungs and the virus of small-pox or plague, a cer-
tain approach must be made towards the source
of infection ; for it is only around this source that
the atmosphere can be so charged with the infec-
tive matter as to afford sufficient for respiratory
absorption.
If the air around an infected individual, or bale
of goods, could be so impregnated with the ema-
nation of variolous or plague virus, or with the
germs of any other disease whatever, as the dis-
tilled water was with nux-vomica in the 24th and
25th experiments, there cannot exist even a sha-
ON ABSORPTION. 145
dow of a doubt that a sound individual respiring
that air, would be more rapidly and more abund-
antly poisoned than he could be by inoculation.
If one infected individual cannot furnish enough
of virus to charge the atmosphere around him
with the seeds of his disease, we know that a
greater number can ; and if the air be not dis-
posed at one time to hold these germs suspended,
we know that at other times it is so disposed.
Therefore, whilst men have lungs constructed as
these organs are at present — whilst the mucous
surface of these lungs are exposed to the contact
of every thing the atmosphere holds in solution —
and whilst it is certain that the most fatal poisons
may be thus deposited on the most rapidly-ab-
sorbing tissue of the whole frame, the healthy
should be carefully and distantly separated from
the infected; nor should they ever, under any
circumstances, respire the air which the emana-
tions from the latter may have poisoned.
From what has been said on the subject of
specific morbid poisons, may be seen the incor-
rectness, nay, even the dangerous tendency of the
L
146
ON ABSORPTION.
distinction lately attempted to be established by
some writers, between contagion and infection.
If contagion be considered as having reference
only to the necessity of contact between any of the
specific poisons and an absorbing surface, then all
the diseases communicated by morbific matter,
whether solid or gaseous, must be ranged under
the head of contagious. But if it refer to the pre-
sumed necessity of contact between sound and
infected individuals, then none of the diseases
alluded to can be called contagious, because this
kind of contact is in no case necessary to their
being communicated.
The word infect and its derivatives clearly con-
vey the idea of something noxious introduced into
the system. They admit of no quibbling ambi-
guity, and should, in sanatary logic, universally
supersede the use of the word contagion and its
adjectives.
ON ABSORPTION. 147
Chapter VI.
Application of the foregoing Principles and Experiments
to Practice in the Treatment of Poisoned Wounds.
In applying the principles developed in the pre-
ceding reasonings and experiments, to the pre-
vention and cure of the symptoms usually pro-
duced by the absorption of deleterious matter
deposited in a wound, or on an abraded surface, —
I shall consider, first, those cases in which the
poison is simply placed in the wound, and does
not exercise any local action on the tissues of the
part.
Secondly, Those cases in which the poison is
injected into the parenchyma, or vessels of the
part, and when some local action is visible.
Thirdly, That unique variety of poisoning pro-
duced by the bite of the rabid dog.
My observations as to curative and preventive
L 2
148 ON ABSORPTION.
measures shall be confined to such as are entirely
physical and external.
These are, 1st, The ligature between the poi-
soned wound and the heart. 2d, The cupping-
glass, or vacuum, 3d, Excision and scarification.
4th, The actual cautery. 5th, Protection from
atmospheric pressure.
1. In all cases of superficial poisoning, when
the deleterious matter is simply deposited in the
wound, the application of the cupping-glass over
the point of contact will save the individual, pro-
vided it be made with the precautions to be no-
ticed hereafter, and before a dose sufficient to
cause death shall have been absorbed.
2. In cases where the poison has been injected,
as, for instance, by the hollow fang of a viper or
rattlesnake, though the cupping-glass may have
been applied, yet as the local action of the venom
goes on in vacuo, the parts acted upon should
be cut out after the venom has been concentrated
and partly extracted by the cupping-glass, which
should be immediately reapplied over the wound
made by the knife, for the purpose of extracting
the contents of the newly-divided vessels from a
ON ABSORPTION. 140
greater distance than could be done before the
operation. After this the actual cautery may be
administered, if thought necessary ; but never
under any circumstances before the second ap-
plication of the cupping-glass, for this reason, —
that when the mouths of the vessels are hermeti-
cally sealed by the hot iron, they can give out
nothing to the vacuum.
3. The poisoning that results from the bite of
a mad dog, so far as regards the simple deposi-
tion of the deleterious matter in the wound, and
the total absence of local action upon the wounded
tissues, comes strictly under the first, or least
complicated class of cases. But the tardiness
with which the poison is absorbed, or if absorbed,
with which it produces its peculiar effects, entitles
it to be considered as a species sui generis.
Fortunately this anomaly does not alter the
preventative indications. These are purely phy-
sical, and as such must be ever unvaried. The
first thing, then, to be done in treating the recent
bite of a rabid dog, is to apply a powerful
cupping-glass over the wound. This measure
supersedes at once the ligature, ablution, exci-
150 ON ABSORPTION.
sion, #-c, during the period of its application, and
for a certain time after its removal *. 2. After
the cupping-glass has been applied for an hour at
least, the whole of the parts wounded or abraded
by the bite should be freely dissected out. 3. The
cupping-glass should then be reapplied immedi-
ately for the reasons already stated. 4. The
wound should next be hermetically sealed by the
actual cautery. 5. The part should be as little
exposed to the contact of the air after the slough
comes away, and as soon healed up, as possible.
If the first application of the cupping-glass
shall have so concentrated the poison, as that the
excision of the part will remove it, or if the
second application of the glass shall have recalled
such particles of it as may have been forced into
the wounded vessels too far to be reached by the
knife, but not beyond the limits of the influence
of the vacuum, the individual will be as secure
against hydrophobia as if he had never been
bitten. But if the poison has already been trans-
ported into the circulation, there to undergo its
* Experiment? 5 — 7.
ON ABSORPTION. 151
incubation, it is evident that no external measures
can be of use.
The notion that the hydrophobic poison is
absorbed after the manner of other substances
similarly circumstanced, but that it does not
produce its peculiar effects, until it has wandered
through the penetralia of the animal for forty days
or longer, is in direct opposition to all analogy.
The experiments which we have witnessed
with the vegetable, mineral, and reptile poisons,
applied to animals externally, prove that the com-
mencement of the symptoms is synchronous with
the consummation of the absorption, and that their
repetition is dependant upon its renewal.
When the hydrophobic wound has been cica-
trized, previously to the appearance of the symp-
toms, we almost always find that it either opens
again by ulceration, or that a painful line is felt
extending from it towards the thorax. Indeed,
both these circumstances are often observed.
Hence arises a strong presumption that it is only
at this moment the fatal absorption commences,
and that, as we have seen in experimental poi-
soning, the completion of the first act of absorp-
152 ON ABSORPTION.
tion is soon followed by the appearance of the
disease peculiar to this species of infection.
In order that specific constitutional disease
should be produced by the application of an
animal poison to a wound, it is necessary, 1st'
That the quantity of the poison be increased by
the assimilation, to a certain extent, of the matter
with which it is placed in contact. 2d, That this
augmented, or assimilated virus should be carried
into, and mixed with the blood, and that the
whole mass of the circulating fluids should be
thereby contaminated.
The first of these conditions is observed when
syphilitic, variolous, vaccine, or glanders-poison
is applied to an absorbed surface.
The second is proved beyond all question,
by the admirable experiment lately made by
Professor Coleman. He transfused some of the
blood of a glandered horse into the veins of a
sound horse, and thus communicated the disease.
This experiment alone would entitle Mr.
Coleman to hold that high rank amongst the
physiologists of Europe, which he so eminently
occupies amongst those who know him, or have
ON ABSORPTION. 153
enjoyed the opportunity of hearing his highly-
interesting lectures on the physiology and pa-
thology of the horse.
Under the presumptive impression, then, that
in hydrophobic, as well as in all other species of
poisoning, the transport of the deleterious matter
from the wound into the system, and the appear-
ance of the symptoms peculiar to the poison,
follow each other as cause and effect — as soon as
the cicatrix begins to feel at all tender, or when
there is sufficient evidence that the animal which
inflicted the bite was rabid, we should imme-
diately apply the cupping-glass, and proceed
exactly as in the case of a recent bite ; nor should
the actual presence of hydrophobia deter us from
this proceeding, any more than the presence of
tetanic spasm in repeating the Fourth Experi-
ment.
It may here be asked, how is it that the cup-
ping-glass should now rank so low as a measure
of prevention or cure in poisoned wounds, whilst
its character remains unimpeached from the time
of Celsus, the day of its supremacy, up to the
present hour ?
154 ON ABSORPTION.
The answer is, that as the true mechanism of
absorption was never understood, nor ever thought
to be connected with atmospheric pressure, the
ratio medendi of the vacuum must have been but
imperfectly comprehended, and therefore the
circumstances which might promote its success,
or contribute to its failure, could not have been
duly appreciated.
As the laws presiding over physical causes and
effects must ever have been, and must ever re-
main the same, the failure of the cupping-glass
when it ought to have saved the individual, can
only be attributable to improper interference with
the poisoned wound previously to its application.
This interference usually consisted ; 1. In scari-
fications, which might or might not extend beyond
the area to be covered by the mouth of the glass.
2. In the actual or potential cautery. 3. In free
exposure to the air.
Celsus recommends surrounding the wound
with incisions or scarifications before the cucur-
bitulais placed over it. " Neque alienum est ante
scalpello circa vulnus incidere."
Galen to this preparatory measure adds the ac-
ON ABSORPTION. 155
tual cautery. " Scalpello circumcide vel igne amputa,
vtntosam post hcec ni locus vetat infer f.3'
Here are two records fully proving that the
vacuum could not always have succeeded even in
the hands of Galen, although applied with due
promptitude after the insertion of the poison.
If it be an object to impress a retrograde di-
rection upon the fluids connected with the wound,
and thereby recall to the surface any particles of
the poison which may have already entered the
mouths or pores of the divided vessels, it is evi-
dent that the more exclusively the pressure is
directed to the wounded surface, and to the little
vessels connected with it, the greater will be the
probability of their contents being squeezed out
into the vacuum : it being an invariable law, that
of many things equally pressed, that which re-
quires least pressure to be moved will yield first,
and move in the direction where there is least
resistance.
Now, when the soft parts about a wound, however
minute, are forced into the vacuum of a cupping-
glass, the point which offers the least resistance
* Galen, (5 % 96 G.)
156 ON ABSORPTION.
to the exit of the fluids contained in these parts
is the little wound itself. But if scarifications
have been made around it, it is no longer so.
Therefore the balance between the vacuum with-
in the glass, and the pressure without, will tend
to be established by a discharge from the scari-
fications, and not from the original wound. Hence
the probability of the poison being forced out of
the wound and the vessels around it, will be di-
minished in proportion to the magnitude of the
scarifications.
If these scarifications extend beyond the area
of the vacuum, the contents of the vessels thus
divided will cease to be influenced by it, and
therefore whatever portion of the poison may
have passed beyond the point of division, will be
carried to the heart, as if no vacuum had been
applied.
If actual or potential cauteries shall have been
used, and if any portion of the poison remain
beyond the depth to which their action may have
extended, the application of the vacuum will be
perfectly useless, because the openings through
which the poison might be pressed out are sealed
up.
ON ABSORPTION. 157
The adoption, then, of any preparatory mea_
sure previously to the application of the vacuum
to poisoned wounds, must deduct from the pro-
bability of success, as well by the countervailing
effects of the measures themselves, as by the
loss of time they occasion. The ligature, recom-
mended by Celsus to be placed between the
wound and the heart, but not so tightly as to de-
prive the limb of sensation, should, with simple
ablution of the part, and protecting it from the
contact of the air, be the only remedial measures
ever suffered to precede the application of the
vacuum ; and even these, only when a cupping-
glass or suction by the mouth cannot be imme-
diately commanded.
Excision and cautery can be of use only in
proportion to their extent. If they reach beyond
the poison they will certainly save, but not other-
wise. The particles which had been already
forced further than the boundary of the excised
wound, will be sent to the heart with greater
rapidity after the operation than they otherwise
would have been*, owing to the wider mouths of
* Fontana, Experiments upon Pigeons.
158 ON ABSORPTION.
the vessels being now fully exposed, and open
to receive the atmosphere within their cavities.
When the cupping-glass has been applied for
an hour to the poisoned part, previously to re-
moving it with the knife, the contents of all the
vessels will have acquired a retrograde direction,
and from not being permitted to flow freely into
the vacuum, a perfect stasis of the fluids is esta-
blished ; hence the loss of the absorbing faculty
of the cupped surface already noticed. (Expe-
riments 5 — 7.)
Thus by allowing the first cupping to precede
the excision of the part, not only is there a
greater quantity of the poison removed, but the
danger of a more rapid absorption is avoided,
whilst the certainty of extracting a still further
portion, or, perhaps, the whole of what may
have remained, constitutes an additional and im-
portant advantage to be obtained by the second
cupping*.
The advantage to be derived from the actual
cautery, after the excision and second cup-
ping, is also of a strictly physical nature. The
* Experiments 22, 23.
ON ABSORPTION. 159
burning of the little vessel hermetically closes its
mouth, and renders its tube incompressible for a
certain extent. Its absorbing powers, therefore,
are suspended, because the pressure of the atmo-
sphere can neither force any thing into it, nor
compress it upon its own contents, so as to force
them forward towards the heart.
APPENDIX,
M
appendix;
, ' No. I.
M. Legalloiis Report of the Experiments on the Venous
Circulation ,~made at the Faculty de M'edecine.
EXPERIENCES FAITES A LA FACULTE DE MEDECINE
PAR M LE Dr. BA*RRY.
N. B. Les rapports indiques supposent l'animal debout,
dans une position naturelle.
Premiere Experience.
Le 14 Juin, en presence de MM. Laennec professeur a la
Faculte, Breschet, chef des travaux anatomiques, Billery
de Grenoble, Bennet, chirurgien du College de Londres, et
de plusieurs eleves, M. Barry a repute 1' experience sui-
vante, deja consignee dans le memoire qu'il a eu Fhonneur
de lire a l'Academie des Sciences dans la seance du 8 de ce
mois.
La jugulaire interne fut mise-a decouvert sur un chien
de petite taille. Une incision ayant 6te pratiquee aux
parois de cette veine, une sonde de gomrae elastiquetfut
introduite dans sa cavite, et dirigee vers le cceur. Au bout
M 2 *
164 APPENDIX.
exterieur de cette sonde etait fixe un robinet, dans Tautre
extremite duquel on introduisit un tube de verre coude a
angle droit et en partie contourne en spirale.
L'appareil ainsi dispose, le tube de verre fut mis en com-
munication avec un vase rempli d'une teinture d'indigo;
puis le robinet ay ant ete ouvert, on vit qu'a chaque dilata-
tion inspiratoire du thorax, le liquide bleu passait dans le
cavite du tube, et s'y elevait a une hauteur d'autant plus
considerable que Tinspiration etait plus prononcee. Dans
l'expiration, le liquide restait en place, ou retrogradait "un
peu vers le vase. A la fin de Texperience seulement, le
sang veineux refluait quelquefois vers le tube lorsque Tani-
mal expirait.
Deuxieme Experience.
La meme experience fut repete sur un cheval, le 10 Juin,
devant MM. Laennec, Cruveilhier, professeur d'anatomie
a, l'Ecole de Medecine ; Breschet, Bogros, prosecteur de la
meme faculte ; Bennet, et de beaucoup d'eleves. Les re-
sultats furent les monies, a cette difference pres, que pen-
dant l'expiration on n'observa aucune regurgitation du sang
veineux dans le tube. Pendant Inspiration, le liquide affluait
en abondance vers le cceu*, et bientot il ne'en resta plus
dans le vase, qu'on fut oblige de remplir une seconde fois.
Ces preparatifs termines, il devint facile d'etablir par
Tintermediaire de la sonde une communication entre la cavite
du pericarde et un vase rempli d'une liqueur coloree en bleu.
Alors il fut sensible pour tous les yeux qu'a chaque mouve-
ment d'inspiration la liqueur s'elevaii dans le tube, qu'elle
redescendait dans Texpiration, et que ces mouvemens "etaient
pour la vitesse et pour Tetehdue precisement en raison
directe de ceux du thorax; de telle sorte que quand la
respiration etait profonde, le liquide s'elevait tres-haut, et
APPENDIX. 165
penetrait meme dans le pericarde, tandis qu'il semblait
agite d'oscillations courtes et rapides quand les mouvemens
de la poitrine etaient faibles, mais rapproches*.
Signe : Eug. Legallois.
Aide de clinique a la Charite.
* Le proces-verbal de ces experiences fut redige sous les yeux de
M. le professeur Laennec, par son eleve, M. Legallois, jeune, homme
de talent^ et fils du celebre physiologiste de ce nom.
No. II.
Letter addressed to Dr. Barry by M. Girard, Director
of the Veterinary School at Alfort.
Alforti ce 6 Juillet, 1825.
(Ministere de l'lntefieur.)
Monsieur le Docteur.
J'ai l'honneur de vous annoncer que j'ai pris des
mesures pour que plusieurs chevaux soient soumis a Vos
experiences vendredi prochain. Si vos occupations vous
permettent de vous rendre a l'ecole ce jour la, je serai flatte
de vous recevoir, et de vous donner toutes les facilites que
vous pourrez desirer.
Agreez, Monsieur le Docteur, l'assurance de la conside-
ration distrnguee avec laquelle j'ai l'honneur d'etre
Votre tres-humble et tres-obeissant Serviteur,
le Directeur de l'Ecole,
Girard<
M. Le Docteur Barry, rue de la Paix, No. 12, bis.
166 APPENDIX.
No. III.
Report made to the Institute of France by Baron Cuvier
and Professor Dumeeil, upon the Memoir
on the Venous Circulation/
INSTITUT DE FRANCE.
ACADEMIE ROYALE DES SCIENCES.\
Le Secretaire Perpetuel de VAcadcmie pour les Sciences Naturelles
certifie que ce qui suit est extrait du proces-verbal
de la seance du lundi 29 Aout 1825.
La circulation dans les animaux a vertebres est Tune des
parties de la physiologie sur laquelle nous avons acquis le
plus de connaissances positives. Ces notions exactes ne da-
tent cependant que du commencement du xvie siecle, epoque
a laquelle Harvey demontra le veritable mecanisme, qui met
en mouvement et qui favorise le transport continuel du sang.
On sait que les canaux qui partent du coeur, et par lesquels
le sang est pousse, dirige vers toutes les parties du corps,
sont les arteres ; et que ceux qui conduisent le sang, le
chyle ou la lymphe au coeur, ont regu le nom de veines ;
enfin que le cceur, ou Torgane qui determine jusqu'a un
certain point, le mode de circulation, varie par sa position,
par sa structure, suivant beaucoup de circonstances qu'on
est parvenu a apprecier, quoique le veritable mecanisme
par lequel son action s'execitte reste a peu pres le meme.
La direction suivant laquelle le sang veineux est constam-
ment entraine vers le coeur avait ete reconnue par Michel
Servet plus de cinquante ans avant les experiences positives
qui firent decouvrir a-Harvey le veritable mecanisme de la
APPENDIX. 167
circulation. Cependant, depuis cette importante et memo-
rable decouverte, il s'est eleve un grand nombre de discus-
sions sur les veritables causes de la progression du sang
dans les veines.
Sans presenter ici une histoire chronologique des diverses
opinions emises a ce sujet, il est important pour la question
que nous allons avoir a examiner, de rapporter brievement
les principales. Nous mettons au premier rang Taction
impulsive du coeur et des arteres qui se continuerait par la
pression qu'elle est censee exercer sur les radicules des
veines, avec lesquelles les arteres s'abouchent dans leur
transmission. Telle etait l'idee de Harvey. Suivant Bichat,
la puissance absorbante du systeme capillaire veineux suffi-
rait pour faire commencer d'abord, et continuer ensuite, cette
progression a Taide de Taction des parois des veines elles-
memes. Enfin, suivant Topinion de divers auteurs, un
grand nombre de causes accessoires faciliteraient cette action
des veines ; telles sont : le mouvement des gros troncs arte-
riels, places le plus souvent entre deux veines, la pression
exercee a Texterieur et au-dedans de tous les organes, par
la peau, par les muscles, par les visceres qui s'affaissent
alternativement apres avoir ete distendus. Mais c'est sur-
tout Taction de la respiration dont la coincidence a ete
observee d'une maniere tres-evidente, comme correspondante
au retour mecanique du sang par les veines. Pour expli-
quer cet effet, les uns ont suppose que le sang etait appele
avec d'autant plus de vitesse, que les poumons etaient plus
vides (Rudiger), ou qu'une inspiration plus forte et plus
rapide permettait au sang un cours plus libre dans les pou-
mons (Santorini). Haller (tome 2 de sa Physiologie,
page 333) cite un grand nombre d'experiences qu'il a repe-
tees sur les animaux vivans, d'apres celles de Valsalva et de
Morgagni, par lesquelles il a reconnu qu'en mettant a nu
168 APPENDIX.
les grosses Veines, telles que les caves sup6rieures et infe-
rieures, les jugulaires, les sous-clavieres, c'etait au moment
ou l'animal faisait une forte inspiration que le sang veineux
parvenait au coeur; que, dans cet instant, toutes ces veines
se desemplissaient, palissaient et s'aplatissaient, se vidaient
du sang qu'elles contenaient; que, dans Texpiration qui
suivait immediatement, les memes veines se gonflaient, de-
Venaient bleues, cylindriques ; et que, plus les deux temps
de la respiration etaient marques, plus ces phenomenes de-
Venaient apparens.
Morgagni avait meme dit (de Causis et Sedibus Mofbo-
rumb lib, 19, art. 33 et 34), qu'en considerant attentive-
ment la Veine jugulaire mise a decouvert sur un chien vivant^
et en appuyant la main sur l'abdomen de l'animal, il avait
evidemment recormu que$ toutes^ les fois que, par Facte de
l'inspiration, le ventre s'elevait, dans le meme moment la
Veine s'affaissait pour se regonfler aussitot que, par facte de
Pexpiration, les parois de Tabdomen retombaient sur elles-
memes*
Depuis, un grand nombre d'auteurs, en particulier notre
habile confrere M. Mage^tdie (Physiologie, 2nde edition
page 418), ont verifie ces circonstances, et ont apporte en
preuve de cette concordance de Pinspiration avec Taccelera^
tion du mouvement dans les gros troncs veineux, des expe-
riences nouvelles et ingenieuses qui ont confirme la realite
constante de ce phenomene, mais en la regardant comme un
moyen accessoire qui facilite Tabord du sang veineux.
Enfin, quoique la plupart des physiologistes aient attribue
uniquement au vide qui s'opere dans le coeur la progression
du sang veineux dans, cet organ e, Bichat ^Anatomie gene-
rate, tome i., page 429) a dit avec raison que ce mouvement
eprouve par le sang dans les veines exigeait encore beau-
coup de recherches ; car, ajoute-t-il, malgre tout ce qu'ont
APPENDIX. 199
ecrit les aiiteurs sur cette question, elle offre une obscurite
ou on n'entrevoit encore que quelques traits de lumiere.
Nous avons cru devoir entrer dans ces details pour mettre
TAcadeniie dans le cas de juger le rnemoire pour Texamen
duquel M. le Baron Cuvier et moi avons 1'honneur d'etre
designes commissaires.
Dans ce travail, M. le docteur Barry expose ses idees
particulieres sur le mouvenient du sang dans les veines ; il
decrit avec beaucoup de details les procedes qu'il a imagines,
nous pouvons le dire, avec sagacite ; quil a executes tres-
adroitement sur les animaux, et qu'il a repetes avec la plus
grande complaisance et a plusieurs reprises sous les yeux de
vos commissaires.
Son rnemoire presente trois objets de recherches prin-
cipaux.
1* De determiner par des experiences positives quelle est
la puissance qui force le sang veineux de se diriger des plus
petites ramifications ou il est puise jusqu'au cceur, ou il
aboutit.
2. D'apprecier et de comparer la vitesse avec laquelle le
sang se meut dans les veines et dans les arteres.
3. D'etablir que l'abord Continuel du sang veineux ne
peut etre assigne uniquement aux causes auxquelles il a ete
attribue jusqu'a present.
Sous le premier point de vue, en etudiant le phenomene
de la circulation veineuse, M. Barry a ete conduit a recon-
naitre que, par l'acte de Tinspiration, il se fait un vide dans
la cavite de la poitrine, laquelle tend a se dilater, et que
tout le liquide en communication avec Tinterieur du thorax
devait y etre attire comme force par la pression atmosphe-
ricuie. Tous les faits connus trouvent, il faut Tavouer, leur
explication dans cet effet physique ; tels sont en particulier
le gonflement des veines jugulaires dans Pexpiration, et leur
170 APPENDIX.
affaissement dans le mouVement inverse; ]a cessation de
certaines hemorrhagies par des inspirations forcees; Tab-
sorption de Tair par les veines et les accidens qui en ont ete
la suite lors de l'ouverture ou de la section de quelques-uns
de ces grands canaux voisins du cceur.
L'auteur ne s'est pas contente de rapprocher ces faits, qui
viennent a Tappui de son opinion, il a voulu la corroborer
par des experiences directes, dont voici les principales.
Ayant ajuste sur l'une des grosses veines, comme sur la
jugulaire d'un animal vivant, le bout d'un tube de verre
garni d'un robinet, et ayant place l'autre extremite libre de
ce tube dans une liqueur coloree, il a reconnu, apres avoir
ouvert le robinet, que, toutes les fois que l'animal faisait
une forte inspiration, le liquide etait vivement absorbe, et
que dans Texpiration, au contraire, il restait stationnaire, s'il
ne refluait pas.
Nous pouvons annoncer de suite que le meme phenomene
se reproduisait toutes les fois que Texperimentateur avait
introduit le meme tube dispose tres-artistement dans un des
cavites du thorax, et meme du pericarde.
Afin de rendre ce mouvement du liquide absorbe par le
tube plus sensible a la vue, M. Barry s'est servi de canaux
contournes en spirale, afin que, l'espace a parcourir etant
plus long, le mouvement devint plus evident; et, pour ren-
dre leUr ascension plus distincte, il a mele ou introduit dans
les liquides colores quelques gouttes d'huile ou des bulles
d'air, qui servaient a faire mieux distinguer leur pro-
gression.
Dans toutes ces experiences,. executees avec la plus grande
adresse et avec des precautions bien satisfaisantes contre
toutes les objections qu'on pourrait leur opposer, Tauteur du
memoire, dont nous desirons faire connaitre les consequences,
s'est assure que le mouvement aspirateur de la grosse veine
APPENDIX. 171
etait coincident avec Tinstant ou Taniinal tendait a operer le
vide dans la poitrine ; que le sang noir ne traverse les veines
que pendant Tacte et le temps de Tinspiration, et que ce
mouvement veineux est toujours plac6 sous Tinfluence de
Taction et de la pression atmospherique.
M. Barry est tellement convaincu de cette action de Tat-^
mosphere sur l'absorption veineuse, qrfil regarde comme un
moyen assure d'empecher l'absorption d'une matiere vene-
neuse, l'application d'une ventouse sur une plaie recemment
empoisonnee, ou dans Tinterieur de laquelle on aurait intro-
duit une substance deletere.
M. le docteur Barry attribue egalement a la pression
atmospherique Taction absorbante du systeme pulmonaire
venoso-arteriel, ou de la petite circulation. Mais ici Tau-
teur offre plutot des raisonnemens 6tablis sur des disposi-
tions anatomiques que sur des observations positives, et
quelques faits d'anatomie comparee pourraient etre objectes
avec succes a cette opinion, que Tauteur n'a pas presentee
avec des experiences aussi concluantes que celles dont il
s^st appuye pour demon trer Taction de la# pression de Tat-
mosphere sur la grande circulation veineuse.
Quant a Tappreciation de la vitesse comparee du sang
dans les deux ordres de vaisseaux qu'il parcourt, Tauteur Ta
faite d'apres Tidee que la pression de Tatmosphere est la
principale puissance qui pousse le sang veineux dans le
cceur pendant Tinspiration. Ce sang doit necessairement se
mouvoir avec une rapidite qui est a celle du sang arteriel
comme le temps employe a une respiration entiere est a
celui d'une seule et unique inspiration, et que la frequence
du pouls ne peut etre prise comme la mesure de la velocite
du sang qui revient au cceur, puisque, dans la premiere
hypothese, ce serait la repetition du mouvement inspirateur
qui reglerait cette velocite. Cette partie du memoire est
172 APPENDIX.
entierement fondle sur le raisonnement, et n'est pas appuyee
de preuves et d'observations qui nous permettent de mani-
fester une opinion sur ce sujet.
Enfin, quant a la derniere consequence que Tauteur pa-
rait devoir tirer de son memoire, que Tabord du sang veineux
au cceur ne peut etre uniquement attribue aux causes indi-
quees jusqua present, nous avouerons que cette idee de
la pression de Tatmosphere comrne cause principale n'a pas
ete primitivement reconnue par lui ; plusieurs autres Tavaient
indique, ni&me avant le docteur Zugenbuhler, qui a cru
devoir faire une reclamation a l'academie, en lui envoyant
une dissertation de Motu Sanguinis per Venas, publiee en
1815.
Mais Tauteur, tout en reconnaissant Taction tres-evidente
de la pression de Tatmosphere, regarde le "cceur comme la
cause premiere du vide qui s'opere dans le systeme, tandis
que M. Barry attribue la dilatation du coeur lui-meme et de
ses oreillettes a la tendance au vide qui s'opere dans toute
la cavite de la poitrine dans Tacte de l'mspiration, en de-
montrant cette acjion par des experiences positives, tandis
que M. Zugenbuhler ne presente que des raisonnemens a
Tappui de son opinion.
En terminant ce rapport sur le memoire interessant de
M. Barry, dans lequel nous nous faisons un devoir de de-
clarer que les experiences decrites avec beaucoup de details
par Tauteur out ete faites et repetees plus de vingt fois sur
des chiens, sur des brebis, sur des chevaux; quelles ont
constamment reussi toutes les fois qu'il a pu executer,
comme il le desirait, les procedes ingenieux qu'il a imagines
dans ce but, et que ces recherches experimentales ont eu
lieu sous nos yeux a la Facult6 e Medecine, au Jardin du
Roi, a l'Ecole d'Alfort, devant M. Girard, et aux abattoirs
de Mont-faucon.
APPENDIX. 173
Vos commissaires jugent ces recherches faites dans un
tres-bon esprit et tres-propres a eclairer l'histoire physiolo-
gique de la circulation veineuse dans les mammiferes. Sous
ce rapport, ils out Phonneur de proposer a TAcademie d'in-
viter Tauteur a poursuivre ses recherches sur les causes de
Tabsorption, recherches qui peuvent offrir un grand interet
et des applications tres -utiles a l'economie animale ; de
decider que le memoire de M. Barry sera insert: parmi
ceux des savans Strangers. Cependant ils ne doivent pas
laisser ignorer que, dans leur opinion particuliere, Facte de
Tinspiration qui peut produire le vide, et par suite l'appel
du sang veineux dans la cavite du thorax chez les animaux
a poumons, tels que les mammiferes et les oiseaux, ne suffit
pas pour expliquer le mouvement du sang dans les veines
chez quelques reptiles et chez les poissons, qui ont un autre
mode de respiration, la meme coincidence d'action ne pou-
vant se trouver entre Tinspiration qui s'opere chez ces ani-
maux par une veritable deglutition et l'abord du sang vei-
neux dans la cavite de leur cceur.
(Signe.) " Le Baron Cuvier.
* Dumeeil, Rapporteur.
L'Academie adopte les conclusions du rapport.
Certifie conforme.
Le Secretaire perpetuel, Conseiller-d'Etat, Commandeur de l'ordre
royal de la Legion-d'Honneur.
(Signe) Baron Cuvier,
174 APPENDIX.
No. IV.
Extract from the Report presented to the AcaMmie de
Medecine, by Professor Laennec, upon the Experi-
ments connected with External Absorption and Trau-
matic Poisoning.
" L'Academie nous a charge, Messieurs Adelon, Orfila et
Moi, de lui rendre compte d]experiences faites par M. Le
Dr. Barry qui lui ont ete communiquees par l'auteur dans
l'une de ses dernieres seances, et qui tendent a prouver, que
la pression atmospherique est la principale cause de Tabsorp-
tion lymphatique et veineuse. Ces experiences consistent
en ce qui suit, &c.
Vos Commissaires pensent en consequence,
• " 1°. Que les experiences de M. Le Dr. Barry, qui
sont une suite de celles par lesquelles il a deja cherch6 a
demohtrer que la circulation veineuse se fait principalement,
sous l'influence de la pression atmospherique, etablissent
d'une maniere incontestable cette influence pour la circula-
tion dans les vaisseaux absorbans ; ce que l'auteur se propo-
soitde demontrer.
" 2°. Que la connaissance de ce fait important peut etre
regardee comme une veritable decouverte, non obstant les
appercues et les idees vagues emises par quelques auteurs
sur Tattraction du sang vers le coeur, et la pratique empi-
rique de la succion dans les plaies empoisonnees, plus usitee
chez les peuplesa demi-civilisees que chez les nations polies.
" 3°. Vos Commissaires vous proposent d'addresser des
femerciemens a M. Le Dr. Barry, de l'engager a repeter
APPENDIX. 175
ses experiences sur le virus de la vipere; d'inserer son me-
moire parmi ceux de Tacademie, et de mettre son nom sur
la liste des candidate aux places d'associes etrangers de
Facademie.
(Signe.) M. Laennec, D.M.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,
Northumberland-court,
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