Word: patient
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Metrazol. Metrazol is a powerful stimulant of the centres which regulate blood pressure, heart action and respiration. Technique of metrazol injections is simple. A patient receives no food for four or five hours. Then about five cubic centimeters of the drug are injected into his veins. In about half-a-minute he coughs, casts terrified glances around the room, twitches violently, utters a hoarse wail, freezes into rigidity with his mouth wide open, arms and legs stiff as boards. Then he goes into convulsions. In one or two minutes the convulsion is over, and he gradually passes into a coma...
Usual course is three convulsions a week for five or six weeks. A patient is seldom given more than 20 injections, and if no improvement is noted after ten treatments, he is usually given up as hopeless...
...horrible are the artificial epileptic fits forced by metrazol that practically no patients ever willingly submit. Common symptoms are a "flash of blinding light," an "aura of terror." One patient described the treatment as death "by the electric chair." Another asked piteously: "Doctor, is there any cure for this treatment...
...reactions," said Professor Kirk, "appeared in some cases within one minute. Tests appearing within five minutes were considered . . . very strong. If no coagulation appeared in ten minutes, the test was negative. The complete method . . . yields final results within a maximum of 20 minutes from the time of receiving a patient, and this time may often be appreciably shortened...
...fifth ribs close to the spinal column, snip free and short-circuit the four nerves of the sympathetic system (between the second and fifth vertebrae) which lead directly to the heart. With exquisite care Dr. Raney avoided damaging other surrounding tissues, left enough nerves intact so that the patient could feel the "warning signal" of angina. Thus, although free of pain, he can still take proper precautions to prolong his life...