Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / by John Abercrombie.
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / by John Abercrombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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!['Tof *P0Pll Norindjj ‘E aoir IS of oH Vtl J ' ^ Cereal tini«Vt A ’ — »«naa iji •»njwlioramTl)L„,. :?lote liaie ame fom4ation w. Tlicie can 1* little i)f any apoplectic affection, WW a Fjy tazarffons piac- I apoplesT witli estr«tion ilkinjnnoiis; kt in simple ihasliH-iireiiacedkiepfateff urns eipc'lral. and y<t tk p(], it stfins ffiy pnilH'ilf j, mj„i,t k kdiil Ik i„fferer. con?-*'’ “> '*'* f' nolf sw\n^ Iwin ead«nc^„,i»o!^' in'“‘'tin SO that, in a few weeks or months, there is no trace of the disease; and in many cases, in which, after long- continued palsy, the patient has died of some other af- fection, we find no morbid appearance in the brain, or none adequate to account for the disease. We may add to these facts many singular examples of very sud- den recovery from palsy even in cases of long standing. A man mentioned by Dr. Russel,* after an apoplectic attack M'ith hemiplegia, recovered the use of his arm in six weeks, but the lower extremity remained perfectly paralytic. After twelve months, in M’hich he made no improvement, he was one day astonished to find that he had some degree of motion of the leg, but it continued only a few minutes. On the same evening he had headach, and in the night he was seized 'with a sort of fit, in which the paralytic limb was strongly convulsed, and after this he had slight power of moving it. The fit returned next day, and again in the night, and then left him completely free from paralysis, and in perfect health; he had continued well for eight years at the time when the account was written. A case somewhat similar, though of shorter standing, occurred to a friend of mine. A middle-aged man was suddenly attacked with hemiplegia and loss of speech, while he was using violent exercise in walking quick or running; all the usual practice was employed without any improvement for a month ; the paralytic limbs then became one day suddenly convulsed, and when this subsided the paralysis was gone. In a woman, mentioned by Dr. Home, hemiplegia of considerable standing was removed by an attack of fever.t A man whose case is mentioned by Mr. Squire,^ had been liable to convulsions from his childhood till he was twenty-three years of age. The fits then left him, and he enjoyed good health for three years ; when, with- out any previous complaint, except a cold, he suddenly ■ London Med. 01)serv. and Enq. vol. i. + Home’s Clinical Experiments. J Ebilosophical Transactions, vol. xlv.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21959432_0317.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
