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Updated: May 24, 2025
Oxygen does not cure pneumonia, but may relieve a dyspnea and aid a heart until other drugs have time to act. If there is insomnia, morphin in small doses will not only cause sleep, but also not hurt the heart. In the morning hours of the day the value of caffein as a cardiac stimulant and vasocontractor, either in the form of caffein or as black coffee, should be remembered.
Coffee and tea are not allowed, except coffee without caffein; and it may be noted that it has recently been shown that caffein is one of the surest of drugs to raise the blood pressure, and is therefore generally not desirable when the heart muscle requires strengthening.
It increases its activity, but gives it a little more strength. It will rarely slow a rapid heart; it will often stimulate a sluggish, slow heart; it may increase the irritability of an irritable heart. As it is a cerebral stimulant, it should not be given late in the afternoon or evening, as it may prevent sleep. The most frequent form of caffein used is the citrated caffein. The dose is 0.1 gm.
Any drug or substance that raises the blood pressure by stimulating the vasomotor center or the arterioles, when constantly repeated, will be a cause of hypertension. This is particularly true of caffein and nicotin. Also, anything that might stimulate, or that does stimulate, the suprarenal glands will cause a continued high blood pressure. Pharmacol. and Exper.
After six grains there is pronounced unsteadiness. A complex test in coördination indicated that the effect of small, amounts of caffein is a stimulation and that of large amounts a retardation. Correspondingly the speed of performance in typewriting is heightened by small doses of caffein and retarded by larger doses.
Caffein or coffee is here indicated, and the patient should be kept warm lest he lose necessary heat. The stomach should be emptied by an emetic, often best by apomorphin hypodermically, unless the pulse is excessively weak. Strychnin may also be given, and digitalis, hypodermically, if it seems indicated. Camphor is another cardiac and cerebral stimulant that is valuable in these cases.
Caffein first accelerates the heart and later may slow it and strengthen it; but if the dose is large or too frequently repeated, the apex of the heart ceases to relax properly and there is an interference with the contraction of the ventricles, the heart muscle becomes irritable, and a tachycardia may develop.
A noted German chemist claims to have discovered an effectual antidote to the harmful effects of coffee, an antidote for which he had searched for years. In his experiments he discovered that the fibre of cotton, in its natural state before bleaching, neutralizes the harmful principle of the caffein.
Venous pressure was not much affected by small doses of epinephrin, but with large doses it rose from 10 to 80 mm. Pituitary extract acts somewhat similarly to epinephrin. Caffein, though raising the arterial pressure, did not influence the venous pressure. Strychnin did not raise either pressure until the dose was sufficient to cause muscular contractions.
As, however, only a teaspoonful or so of the powdered cocoa, or chocolate, goes to make a cupful, the actual food value of cocoa or chocolate, unless made with milk, is not much greater than that of tea or coffee with cream and sugar. They contain less caffein than either tea or coffee, but are liable to clog rather than to increase the appetite for other foods. Effects of Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa.
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