Definition of Depressant, Cerebral:
Nervines that are cerebral depressants, sedatives, or tranquillizer. These lower or suspend the higher brain functions after a preliminary stage of excitement:
[Culbreth1927, pp 40-41].
- Narcotics (Gr. ..., numbness, stupor) - which at first excite and stimulate all the body functions, then cause profound sleep, stupor, coma, insensibility, and death by paralyzing the medulla-centers governing respiration and other vital functions: opium, morphine, cannabis, lactucarium, cimicifuga;
- Hypnotics, Soporifics, Somnificants (Gr. sleep; L. sopor, heavy sleep, somnus, sleep, + facere, to make) - which produce sleep, leaving undisturbed the normal relationship of the mental faculties to the external world; in a broad sense these include narcotics and anesthetics: chloral hydrate, sulfonmethane, sulfonethylmethane, paraldehyde, chloralformamide, urethane, potassium, sodium, and ammonium bromides;
- Anodynes, Analgesics (Gr. ..., not, + ..., pain, without pain, cures pain) - which relieve pain by either depressing sensory centers or impairing nerve-fiber conductivity: opium, morphine, belladonna, hyoscyamus, stramonium, coca, cocaine, hop, antipyrine, acetanilid, acetphenetidin;
- Anesthetics (Gr. ..., not, + ..., sensible, insensible effect produced) - which reduce sensory nerve-functions until nerves cannot receive or conduct sensation; some directly depress the skin's end-organs, others impair the sensory nerve conductivity, others reduce local circulation; these are mostly volatile substances, whose vapor when inhaled sufficiently causes complete unconsciousness, loss of sensation and motion; anodynes only diminish, while anesthetics temporarily destroy skin and mucous membrane sensibility: ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide, ethyl bromide, methylene bichloride.