The principles and practice of hydrotherapy : a guide to the application of water in disease for students and practitioners of medicine / by Simon Baruch ... ; with numerous illustrations.

  • Baruch, Simon, 1840-1921.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles and practice of hydrotherapy : a guide to the application of water in disease for students and practitioners of medicine / by Simon Baruch ... ; with numerous illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    we may by influencing the latter readily exercise a powerful effect upon the former. That thermic and mechanical irritation applied by means of water upon the cutaneous surface does arouse cell activity and does affect tissue change has been very generally accepted. Proof is not wanting that this well-recognized fact is based upon substantial experimental data. Many laboratory experiments have been made with a view of furnishing actual demonstrations of the influence of hydriatic proced- ures upon tissue change. Among these may be mentioned the classi- cal experiments of Liebermeister and Goldmeister, showing a constant increase of C02 production after the application of cold. These deduc- tions have been confirmed by Eoehrig and Zuntz,* by their careful experiments in the Bonn Laboratory. Not only was Liebermeister's. idea found correct, but it was clearly shown that the consumption of oxygen was subject to changes depending upon the temperature of the surrounding medium. Roehrig and Zuntz found that changes in the intensity of tissue metamorphosis appeared to be traceable to certain cutaneous nerve fibrils, which were excited by cold. These nerve, fibrils could also be aroused by other stimuli, such as strong salt baths, with the same effect of increasing tissue change. An interesting point in connection with these experiments was that these increased oxida- tion processes seemed to be located in the muscles, through their nerve supply, and that the muscles need not, for this purpose, be aroused sufficiently to produce visible contractions. This was made evident by experiments made upon animals in which the innervation of the muscles was placed in abeyance by arrow poison. In such animals tissue change was not only not increased by cold but was even reduced one-half. Eoehrig and Zuntz concluded that the source of tissue changes in the animal economy when affected by cold lies in the innervation of the muscles, and this is confirmed by the trite physiological fact that the larger part of all combustion processes occurring in the animal body may be traced to the muscles. The most recent conscientious and painstaking contribution to this subject is the excellent monograph on the behavior of tissue changes in hydriatic therapeutics by Dr. Alois Strasser, the intelligent and learned assistant of Professor Winternitz in the Allgemeine Poliklinik of Vienna, whose views I propose to reproduce as fully as space will permit. Strasser refers to the fact which I have elsewhere insisted upon, that the action of all thermic irritants is reflex. The contraction of the peripheral vessels followed by the elevation of the tone of the vessels * Pfltiger's Archiv, 1871.