The Sympathetic Component

Abstract

Interest in the sympathetic nervous system and its functions has grown in recent years since it has been demonstrated that an increasingly large number of clinical conditions have been benefited by procedures that interrupt its pathways. Ganglion- ectomy has been used with considerable success in the treatment of thromboangiitis obliterans, Raynaud’s disease, angina pectoris, Hirschsprung’s disease, hypertension and a number of other clinical entities. Novocaine injection that produces a temporary interruption of sympathetic pathways, has been found useful as a prognostic test to determine the probable value of a subsequent sympathectomy, and more recently it has been employed as a therapeutic agent in its own right. It has proven to be of value in the treatment of deep venous thrombosis, and recent observations by Schumaker¹⁰⁸ suggest that it may be useful in controlling labor pain. A single novocaine blockade of the lumbar ganglia abolishes the pain due to uterine contractions for a period of four or five hours. In a series of sixteen cases, Schumaker has been able to control this element of the labor pains without materially reducing the strength of contraction of the uterus.