Word: patient
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...intricate barbwire fence of delicate nerves which control such involuntary functions as digesting, blushing, sweating, weeping, vomiting. Held in dynamic balance by the restraining influence of the "parasympathetic nervous system," the sympathetic system steams up when the body signals full speed ahead. During an attack of angina, a patient shows all the outward signs of "sympathetic overactivity" except one. He perspires, his stomach expands, his heart throbs in violent tempo. But for some reason his coronary blood vessels, instead of expanding, contract. In this perverse, mysterious contraction, believes Dr. Raney, lies the key to the secret of angina pectoris...
...hemorrhages and double vision. . . . [In the U. S.] local treatments such as belladonna plasters over the kidneys and ice bags over the vertebrae were enthusiastically recommended. A worthy Ph.D. pleaded for selfdiscipline, fervently exhorting his hearers not to get the sneezing habit-which was very much like bidding a patient with a raging fever to keep cool. . . . Treatment ranged from what was called respiratory gymnastics to such Spartan measures as cauterization of the prostate gland in males and bone-breaking without discrimination...
...Standard rule in allergy therapy: "Free the patient of exposure, if possible. If not, make him capable of sustaining it." Standard procedure consists of: 1) skin and diet tests to detect the offending substances; 2) injections or feeding of minute quantities of the allergen until immunity is produced. This procedure takes many weary months, often years, has brought a good percentage of successful results with victims of every kind of allergy-from canteloupe to horsehair...
Death Eye. During operations, anesthetists watch closely the color of their patient's skin. If his normal rosy tinge changes to bluish, they quickly pump oxygen into his lungs. But it takes several minutes for the skin to show its telltale sign, and even the keenest observers cannot scent death by this crude method until a short time before the end. Last week Dr. Roy Donaldson McClure of Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital described a machine that notes the shadow of death long before death's hue is seen...
Blood deprived of oxygen darkens, gradually turns purple. Dr. McClure attaches a sensitive photoelectric cell to the ear, and the cell, literally seeing beneath the skin, records minute changes in blood-color long before the anesthetist notes approaching collapse. Thus vital stimulants can be given the moment the patient needs them...