PRELIMINARY NOTE ON AN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH INTO THE MEANS OF CONTROLLING THE BLOOD PRESSURE.

When the vasomotor center is exhausted stimulants such as strychnin are either valueless or harmful, because if the center is wholly exhausted it can have no effect, and if partially exhausted the stimulation will be followed by a deeper depression. Shock may be as readily induced by vasomotor stimulants as by injuries or operations; the former belong to the class of internal stimulants, the latter to that of external stimulants. Neither can be employed with advantage in the treatment of a shock produced by the other. Alcohol should be classed as a depressant. Nitroglycerin is of advantage only in certain diseases of the arteries. In digitalis the vasomotor factor in its effect is objectionable on the same grounds as that of strychnin. As to the cardiac factor in the action of digitalis, an increase in the heart's action, per se, has but a limited effect on the