Collateral circulation

“ Passports, railway-service, post, telephone, currency—all these may fittingly be considered as aspects of one vital matter, namely, circulation. All living organic unity is dependent on circulation. As the health of the human body is dependent on an unobstructed circulation of the blood, of the lymph, of the air, so the health of a nation or a state or a group of states is dependent on the free circulation of peoples, goods, opinions, money, and what not. ”

“ A rupture with any of our neighbours upon the continent, though likely, too, to occasion some stop or interruption in the employments of some of all these different orders of people, is foreseen, however, without any such general emotion. The blood, of which the circulation is stopt in some of the smaller vessels, easily disgorges itself into the greater, without occasioning any dangerous disorder ”

“ If there was any circulation at all the string would not prevent the blood flowing out through the artery, but it would prevent its return, and, therefore, if there was life a faint color would manifest itself in the finger. ”

“ An example from the history of science is afforded by Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, which was at first only a hypothesis, and a much-doubted one at that. If the blood is driven by the heart through the arteries, and returns to the heart by way of the veins, then the flow of blood in any particular artery must be away from the heart, and in any particular vein towards the heart. ”

“ When that fluid in the human system indispensable to life becomes disordered, corrupted, or obstructed in its circulation, not the head or the heart alone suffers; but the whole body--head, heart, and hand, all the members, and all the extremities--is affected with debility, paralysis, numbness, and death. The analogy between the human system and the social and political system is complete; and what the lifeblood is to the former, circulation, money, currency, is to the latter ”

“ Circulation. It is not the heart only that pumps the blood through the body. The tiny muscles of the smallest blood-vessels, by their elasticity are of the greatest importance in maintaining an even flow, and this is especially influenced by fear and depression. Blushing, pallor, cold hands and feet, are circulatory disturbances based largely on emotions. Better than a hot-water bottle or electric pads are courage and optimism. A patient of mine laughingly tells of an incident which she says happened a number of years ago, but which I have forgotten. ”

“ In persons advanced in life the trunks of the internal, carotid, and basilary arteries are frequently diseased, and are therefore very liable to rupture whenever the blood is accumulated in any unusual quantity, or the circulation is preternaturally accelerated. ”

“ The partisans of this opinion conclude that the arteries have not and cannot have any influence upon the motion of the blood which runs through them, and that the heart is the principal, and as it were, the sole agent of the circulation. ”

“ Briefly, then, the brain is governed by the common law that controls blood-circulation in all the organs. By virtue of this law, when the organs are at rest and their action suspended, the circulation in them grows languid; and it increases, on the contrary, as soon as activity is resumed. The brain, I repeat, is no exception to this general law, as had been supposed, for it is now demonstrated that the state of sleep coincides not with congestion, but, on the contrary, with bloodlessness of the brain. ”

“ In order, therefore, to relinquish its seat of origin, and enter constricted and colder places, and move in opposition to its bent, [261] the blood has need not only of violence but of an impeller, such as is the heart alone, and after the fashion described already. ”

“ When the Soul is first united with the Body, and receives command over [32] the organs of Motion, it seems to have been laid under a kind of necessity, by which it is compell’d to exert these organs in avoiding whatever is hurtful, and in chusing whatever is apparently beneficial, to the Body.
’Tis evident, from the laws of the Circulation, that when the Motion of the Blood through the Lungs is stop’d, for a short time, the right Ventricle of the Heart must be violently distended, and consequently severely stimulated. ”

“ For the present be it enough to have shown sufficiently that during the beat of the heart the blood is transfused and withdrawn from the veins into the arteries through the ventricles of the heart, and is distributed to the body at large. ”

“ The pallor produced by fright and by extreme anxiety, is purely the result of a local modification of the circulation, brought about by an over-stimulation of the nerves which supply the small arteries, causing them to contract, and to thus cut off more or less completely the supply of blood. ”

“ Having proved that the whole of the left side of the heart, during life, is full of scarlet arterial blood, Galen's next point was to inquire into the mode of communication between the arteries and veins. ”

“ The vital processes are the more active the greater the rapidity with which the blood circulates in our body; but in order to accelerate the movement of the blood, the blood-vessels must contract. What we notice in the course of rivers, namely, that the current becomes quicker at that point where the bed is narrower, takes place also in our circulatory system. When we are threatened by a danger, during fear, emotion, when the organism must develop its strength, an automatic contraction of the blood-vessels takes place, which renders the movement of the blood more rapid in the nerve-centres. ”

“ In the phenomena of general circulation the blood may be said to do nothing more than traverse the parts, to pass from the arteries into the veins; in the phenomena of local, which is the true functional circulation, the blood penetrates all the folds of the organ, and gathers closely about its anatomical elements, to arouse and excite their special mode of activity. The nervous system, sensitive in its action through the vessels, governs all those phenomena of local circulation which attend organic activity ”

“ If we press upon the carotid arteries which pass up through the neck to form the arterial circle of Willis, at the base of the brain, within the skull—of which I have already spoken, and which supplies the brain with blood—we quickly, as every one knows, produce insensibility. Thought is abolished, consciousness lost. And if we continue the pressure, all those automatic actions of the body, such as the beating of the heart, the breathing motions of the lungs, which maintain life and are controlled by the lower brain centers of ganglia, are quickly stopped and death ensues. ”

“ The sudden difference that the circulation experiences, has a manifest influence upon its functions. In fact the least foreign substance, differing from red blood, which during life is forced towards the brain by the carotid, is sufficient to produce there a remarkable derangement, and oftentimes even death, as I have frequently convinced myself. Why? because it is not only as a vehicle of nutritive matter, that the fluid sent by the arteries acts upon the brain, but also as an excitant, a stimulant. ”

“ They steady the circulation, the heart action, muscles and nerves of the mind. If the heart flutters, the circulation is not regular, and when the lung action is uneven, the mind becomes unsteady and not fit for concentration. ”

“ Whatever either increases or disorders the general circulation, and especially all causes that increase the action of the cerebral arteries, or, as it is usually though improperly expressed, which occasion a determination of blood to the head. ”

“ The equality which ought to prevail in the system, and which indeed cannot be dispensed with, can only take place in those remoter branches of the arteries in which the blood has reassumed its former state of dilation or rarefaction. ”

“ Even the blood-corpuscles can't hold a public meeting without being accused of "congestion"—and the brain, like other despots whom we have known, calls out at once for the use of sharp steel against them. ”

“ We can compare networks to the veins and blood vessels in our bodies. The heart pumps the blood, the lungs replenish it, the other organs feed off of it. The veins serve as the thoroughfares for blood just as networks serve as highways for information. ”

“ The blood-pressure is also automatically regulated, both the diameter of the bloodvessels and the frequency of the heart-beat being under reflex control; and we may, as a final instance of reflex action, describe one of Nature’s most perfect and merciful contrivances—fainting. Suppose a man receives a severe wound—say, has his hand struck off by a sword—the shock to his system causes an immediate dilatation of the large bloodvessels of the abdomen ”

“ The voice of a denying criminal has in hundreds of cases been proved through a large number of physiological phenomena to do the same thing for him; the stimulation of the nerves influences before all the characteristic snapping movement of the mouth which alternates with the reflex tendency to swallow. In addition it causes lapses in blood pressure and palpitation of the heart by means of disturbances of the heart action, and this shows clearly visible palpitation of the right carotid (well within the breadth of hand under the ear in the middle of the right side of the neck) . ”

“ This experiment will contradict those who pretend that the blood in the arteries is of one kind, that in the veins of another, on the ground that that in the arteries is more florid and seethes and is blown up with copious spirits, I know not how, like milk or honey boiling upon the fire, swelling and filling a larger space. ”

“ In this state, if a sudden chill take place, the blood-vessels of the skin contract, the blood is driven from the surface, and the internal organs are taxed with a double duty. If the constitution be a strong one, these organs march on and perform the labor exacted. But if any of these organs be debilitated, the weakest one generally gives way, and some disease ensues. ”

“ When the powers of life are sinking, and the life-giving fluid circulates but feebly in the extremities of the system, and is accumulating in the larger blood vessels and in the heart itself, threatening every moment to stop its faint throbbings, shall he, while he administers the cordial, defeat its effect, by holding up to the eye of his patient the grim visage of death, to oppress the vital forces and curdle the blood in its channels? ”

“ Perhaps it may even be that the functions of those sympathetic fibres which accompany the arteries of the outer organs are simply ancillary to those of the central parts of the sympathetic system, which stimulate and regulate the viscera—ancillary in this sense, that they check the diffusion of blood in external organs when it is wanted in internal organs: cerebro-spinal inhibition (except in its action on the heart) working the opposite way. ”

“ Active congestion, or arterial dilatation with consequent free flow of blood through the capillaries, is an early and prominent symptom of inflammation of a vascular part in man. Unlike the morbid condition which is produced by the application of irritants to the frog s web, it is brought about indirectly through the nervous system. ”