p. 109 | About Fainting

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1885

About Fainting.

It is surprising how everybody rushes at a fainting person and strives to raise him up, and especially to keep his head erect. There must be an instinctive apprehension that if a person seized with a fainting or other fit falls into the recumbent position, death is more imminent. I must have driven a mile to-day while a lady fainting was held upright. I found her pulseless, white, and apparently dying, and I believe that if I had delayed ten minutes longer she really would have died. I laid her head down on a lower level than her body, and immediately color returned to her lips and cheeks, and she became conscious. To the excited group of friends I said: Always remember this fact; namely, fainting is caused by want of blood in the brain; the heart ceases to act with sufficient force to send the usual amount of blood to the brain, and hence the person loses consciousness because the function of the brain ceases. Restore the blood to the brain, and instantly the person recovers. Now, though the blood is propelled to all parts of the body by the action of the heart, yet it is still under the influence of the laws of gravitation. In the erect position the blood ascends to the head against gravitation, and the supply to the brain is diminished, as compared with the recumbent position, the heart's pulsation being equal. If, then, you place a person sitting whose heart has nearly ceased to beat, his brain will fail to receive blood, while if you lay him down, with the head lower than the heart, blood will run into the brain by the mere force of gravity, and in fainting, in sufficient quantity to restore consciousness. Indeed, nature teaches us how to manage the fainting persons, for they always fall, and frequently are at once restored by the recumbent position into which they are thrown.—Sel.