Lectures on diseases of the nervous system, especially in women / by S. Weir Mitchell.

  • Silas Weir Mitchell
Date:
[1885], ©1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diseases of the nervous system, especially in women / by S. Weir Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    As regards the pain-sense, there was one very curious point to which I have already alluded. As the needle came within an inch or two of the middle line of the body, both at the back and front, it was felt, and the better felt the nearer it came to this line; nor do I recall having met with this fact in any case of palsy from organic cause. The right side of the body was palsied in a less degree, and only as to motion, the leg far more than the arm. The same was the case on the left side as regards all the forms in which the functions were deficient. ]^ow as this case grew better the right side became entirely well first, leaving the left hemiplegia as before, so that I have reason to speak of the whole loss as being due to a double hemiplegia. In other cases I have seen a general loss of sense and motion, and observed entire relief on the right side, leaving only a hemiplegia of the left. My patient had some wasting of the left leg, and less good electro-muscular reaction on the left, but no pain on that side from any form of current. The tendon reflex below^ the knee-pan was good on the right, and also on the left; but, what was new to me, the jerk was sometimes due to the extensors, and sometimes due to the flexors, the extensors in the latter case not seeming to move at all. Here was another of the oddities of this most strange disorder. As is usual, she moved her limbs best while in bed; and showed, when I came to let her sit up, or stand, the loss of balancing power which is seen in all grave hysteric palsies, and is, indeed, almost a sure sign of the parentage of the disease.