These medicines are all produced by the natural order Solanaceæ. Of all Narcotics they approach the nearest to Sedatives. Their only stimulating action is to produce at the very first a slight and evanescent febrile condition,—a quick pulse and heat of skin,—which never lasts long, and is sometimes overlooked.
They are not Soporific. Their action is soon manifested by an anodyne operation, and a sedative influence on the heart and circulation. For this double action they are employed in medicine, being used in painful disorders, fevers, and inflammations. As anodynes they are not so efficacious as Opium, but their action is not followed by constipation, or by a diminution in any of the secretions.
They all dilate the pupil of the eye. Belladonna produces a peculiar dryness of the throat, and has been known to cause an erythematous eruption. Stramonium appears especially to control the respiratory nerves, and is thus used in Asthma, where there is a spasmodic circular contraction of the smaller bronchial tubes. Lobelia, a medicine of the first order, possesses a somewhat similar power. The action of the remedies of this third order of Narcotics is distinguished by the production of delirium when they are given in large doses.
Let us again assume the threefold division of the mental functions, to which allusion has already been made. Inebriants impair equally the mind, volition, and the five senses. Soporifics extinguish for awhile both volition and the senses, but may leave the mind alone. In delirium these functions are not thus impaired and held in subjection, but they are excited and led astray. The mind is occupied intently upon imaginary fancies; unreal objects and hallucinations are presented to the senses. So that Deliriants, in this peculiar phase of their action, tend to excite the mind and the volition, and to delude or derange the senses.
Speaking generally and rather inaccurately, we might say that the medicines of the first order of Narcotics bewilder and impair the powers of the mind; those of the second order subdue and extinguish them for awhile; and those of the third kind excite and derange them.
Certain peculiar and exceptional effects are produced by some Narcotics when they are administered in repeated doses for a long time together. Taken in this way, Alcohol produces delirium tremens, and great despondency of mind; as also often a chronic inflammation of the liver. The continued smoking of Tobacco is found to exert a tranquilizing influence over the mind. And the continual use of Opium or Indian Hemp, both of which are habitually consumed in large quantities in the East, produces a curious and melancholy series of mental hallucinations and disorders.
SEDATIVES.
We have now to consider the third and last division of Neurotic medicines. Sedatives are medicines which directly depress nervous force. Some affect nervous force in general; others confine their action to particular nerves. They are mostly energetic and dangerous agents. For the time being they may destroy nervous power, and remove nervous control.
It might already have been concluded, from what has been said of the secondary action of Narcotics, that there are two ways in which a Sedative action on nerve may be manifested. Sedatives may destroy nervous influence; or they may simply derange it.
Let us suppose a special Sedative to derange the action of the Vagus nerve. It would probably cause the rhythmical contraction of the heart to be abnormally slow or irregular. It would be likely to diminish in the lungs the sensation of want of breath, and thus decrease the number of the respirations; and at the same time it would repress the irritability of the pulmonary mucous surface. Further, it would in some way derange the normal function of the stomach. All these things a Sedative to the Vagus nerve does actually effect. Given in large quantity, it may cause death, by destroying those functions which in a small dose it deranges.