The insanity of over-exertion of the brain : being the Morison lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, session 1894 / by J. Batty Tuke.

  • John Batty Tuke
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The insanity of over-exertion of the brain : being the Morison lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, session 1894 / by J. Batty Tuke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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    LECTURE IV. We must now turn our attention to a very important series of symptoms produced by morbid hyperemia and congestion of the Rolandic area,—the impairment of the health of the general system. These somatic symptoms are of great interest, and their consideration has a very considerable bearing on treatment. It is not my intention to discuss in any detail the vexed question as to the manner in which the central nervous system affects metabolism,—whether by the action of special trophic fibres, by the action of the vaso-motor systems, or by any undiscovered special quality of nerve regulating its government of muscle, gland, or connective tissue. The whole subject is far too complicated to admit of profitable discussion on the present occasion. We must content ourselves with the clinical fact that, under certain diseased conditions of the nervous centres and of their extensions, profound changes take place in the nutrition of the general system ; that no tissue is immune from their influence ; and that the functions of each and all suffer manifestly. We must work on the general principle that the nutrition of each tissue is, in the complex animal body, so arranged to meet the constantly recurring influences brought to bear on it by the nervous system, that, when those influences are permanently withdrawn [or morbidly implicated], it is thrown out of equili- brium : its molecular processes, so to speak, run loose, since the bit has been removed from their mouths. l The earliest symptoms of over-exertion of the brain have been already stated :—A general falling-off from the normal condition of the body ; the skin gets harsh or clammy, the complexion pale or dusky; dry hair; uneasy, or actually painful, sensa- tions are experienced at the vertex, less frequently over the 1 Texl-Book of rhysiolog)1. Foster, part ii.