On softening of the brain arising from anxiety & undue mental exercise and resulting in impairment of mind / Forbes Winslow.

  • Forbes Benignus Winslow
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On softening of the brain arising from anxiety & undue mental exercise and resulting in impairment of mind / Forbes Winslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    same authority, in the mechanical destruction or ma- ceration of the nervous tissue in serum, or is the result of putrefaction. The yellow and white softening is said to be the effect of inflammatory action. The fawn- coloured ramollissement is generally consequent upon an opposite condition. The other conclusions of this able physiologist I give in his own words:—That red softenings usually depend upon congestion or the direct extravasation of blood; yellow softenings, on the imbi- bition of the colouring-matter of the blood; fawn and grey-coloured softenings, on the presence of grey exuda- tion corpuscles; and white softenings, in the great ma- jority of cases, are post-mortem, and the result of mace- ration in serum. In no single instance has softening of the nervous centres been traced to the presence or infiltration of pus. That inflammation of the central parts of the brain generally produce well-marked lesions of sensation and motion; whilst in inflammation of the peripheral por- tions, lesions of intelligence are commonly well pro- nounced. That in idiopathic inflammatory softening of the brain, contraction in one or more limbs is a common symptom. That the fawn-coloured spots described by Dr. Sims, are no evidence of the cure of inflammatory softening. That inflammation accompanying haemorrhage is usually consecutive. The softening surrounding apoplectic clots, or san- guineous infiltration, is no proof of inflammatory action. Ramollissement of the brain is not confined to one portion of the cerebral mass. The parts most frequently found in a softened state are the grey matter of the convolutions, the Thalami and Corpora Striata. The
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