Volume 2

On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

  • Wilson, James Arthur, 1795-1882.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    56/222 (page 42)
    SPASM OF THE DIAPHRAGM. Spasm of the diaphragm is a phrase in common use among physicians to express certain urgent conditions of the pulse and breath. Yet, though probable by analogy, it is by no means of direct proof that spasm of this unique muscle can be admitted as a true patho- logical state. Our knowledge of the diaphragm in its healthy movements is so limited, that we have little right to pronounce upon its behaviour when irregular, or under circumstances of supposed disorder. It is strangely assumed by anatomists, with the muscle spread out beneath their eye, that its full con- traction is needed for the effect of a complete inspira- tion. No better means could in truth be devised in the mechanism of the chest, than the shortening of its fibres, for the more effectual expiration of the breath. ‘When the tendinous centre of the diaphragm is fixed by the contraction of its lesser muscle, the ribs are brought together, downwards and backwards upon each other, and the sternum is made to approach the spine, by the simultaneous grasp of its lateral and anterior divisions. A little space is gained vertically by the occupation of a somewhat lower level than would remain with the fibres in their passive state; — but where the chest is broadest and widest, there its area is most reduced by the contraction, whether healthy or spasmodic, of the muscle which forms its base.