A case of double optic neuritis without cerebral tumour / by J. Hughlings Jackson.
- John Hughlings Jackson
- Date:
- [1897]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A case of double optic neuritis without cerebral tumour / by J. Hughlings Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![1871, embodies the opinions I still hold on the diagnostic value of neuritis. I begin by speaking of the limitation of my experience of optic neuritis.* I have spoken above of a Physician's experience, and I hasten to qualify my remarks. I see those patients who have severe cerehral disease. No one ever consults me for defect of sight only, but for such symptoms as severe head- ache, convulsion, and hemiplegia, with which optic neuritis often occurs. To me defect of sight is but one symptom, and not the most important one, in a series. I admit, then, that my experience is of necessity one-sided. Further I admit that in a few cases of severe cerebral disease where I have discovered double optic neuritis, I have found no kind of coarse disease post-mortem. I have been wrong several times in the diagnosis of an adventitious product within the skull in cases where there had been found double optic neuritis, hut I have far oftener teen wrong hy neglecting tlie inferences ahove stated to he deducihle from the ]jresence or ahsence of oj^tic neuritis—wrong in saying there loas an adventitious product when the discs were normal, and wrong in saying there was not when there was double optic neuritis. I feel, therefore, justified in saying that double optic neuritis does point very strongly indeed to coarse disease inside the head. You will not misunderstand me to imply that you are to diagnose tumour or other coarse disease of the brain solely by the ophthalmoscope. You have, in most cases, no need to rely on this one condition. You do not diagnose phthisis by the physical signs alone. You may say that you would be right in most cases if you did trust to physical signs alone. I may go so far as to the ophthalmoscopical signs.- You would be right in most cases, I believe, if you diagnosed coarse disease within the skull by the presence of optic neuritis. * This and the five suhsequcnt paragraphs have ah-eadv been pubUshed in a pamphlet printed for private circulation. Thcj appeared in this way before tiie caf>e related in th? text was seen by me.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21637039_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
