A treatise on the practice of medicine / by John Eberle.

  • John Eberle
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the practice of medicine / by John Eberle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

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    tion, where such disorder exists, is probably the immediate excit- ing cause of the paroxysm. It would be useless to enter into any discussion concerning the causes of the paroxysmal character of this affection, or of the oc- casional strict periodicity of its recurrence. The influence of habit has been adduced in explanation of these mysterious points of pathology. The term habit, however, in a physiological sense, can mean nothing else than a tendency to repeat an action, whe- ther morbid or healthy, that has been produced by some exciting cause, without the presence or further co-operation of such cause. This, however, is merely expressing the general fact, and offers no explanation of it whatever. Diagnosis.—The affection with which epilepsy is most liable to be confounded, is hysteria, when this disease assumes the con- vulsive form. They may be distinguished from each other, how- ever, by the following circumstances. In hysteric convulsions, the countenance is less livid and distorted than in epilepsy ; and there is seldom any foaming at the mouth, or profuse discharge of saliva, nor docs it terminate in heavy sleep, or in a confused and torpid state of the mind, so general at the conclusion of the epi- leptic paroxysm. In hysteria too, there are always some concom- itant phenomena which indicate its character, such as the globus hystericus, involuntary laughing or weeping, and in many instan- ces a continuation of some degree of consciousness, &c. Prognosis.—Although the immediate danger of the epileptic paroxysm is not in general very great, yet in relation to its sana- bility, the prognosis is always highly unfavourable. Even where a cure or suspension of the disease has been effected, the liability to a relapse is always considerable. When epilepsy depends on organic disorder within the head, no remediate management can effect a cure. Epilepsy, however, unconnected with cerebral lesion, may sometimes be cured.* That variety of the disease which occurs in young females about the age of puberty, from menstrual irregularities, is not unfrequently curable, and indeed sometimes passes off spontaneously after the catamenia begin to flow regularly. The longer the disease has continued, or rather, • Dr. Dewees, in his work on the Practice of Physic, has inadvertently ex- pressed contradictory sentiments in relation to the curableness of this disease. Under the head of treatment, he asks, What plan of treatment has ever suc- ceeded in curing epilepsy ? Has epilepsy ever been cured? Under the head of diagnosis, however, he says, When the disease is symptomatic, it is occasion- ally curable; again, tiiose attacked between the fourth and tenth year may be cured by ])roper treatment. Most assuredly this latter sentiment accords with the experience of the ablest of the profession of all ages. However appalling and really intractable this disease may in general be, perfect cures are by no means so uncommon as the Doctor's interrogatories might lead one to suspect. I have known at least five distinctly marked cases cured under my own observa- tion, two of which were of more than two years standing, and one above six years.
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