Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston, M.D.

  • Thomas Clouston
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston, M.D. 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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    Effects of the medicine on the different varieties of the disease. —Examining the seven cases in which we have seen the medi- cine to have had most effect in diminishing the numbers of the fits, do we find that they had anything in common as to age, length of existence of the disease, cause of the disease, kind and frequency of the fits, or in any other respect ? I shall investigate the same points in regard to the patients in whom the medicine caused ill effects. Those patients in whose cases the fits were most diminished were of all ages, from twenty-four to fifty-five. In all of them the epilepsy had existed for many years. In three of them, indeed, it had existed from childhood, and in one from puberty. In no respect does there seem to be anything in common. In all of them, indeed, there is a certain amomit of intelligence left, but it varies much. In J. G's. case, the patient who was most benefited of any, he is very nervous at all times, being easily startled by impressions on his sensory organs, and the majority of his fits consisted of those in which the body was violently jerked and thrown about with no clonic spasm, and of those he has in the meantime quite got rid. He saw a bright light immediately before those fits came on. They are not invariably the patients who have gained most in weight, or whose bodily health has in any way improved most while taking the medicine. The numbers of fits taken by those patients vary considerably, from an average of 36 per week down to an average of one fit. On the whole, however, the good effects of the drug in diminishing the number of fits, and in improving the mental state, were more marked among patients who took frequent fits, than among those who took fits at very rare intervals. All chose who took frequent fits were not materially benefited, but in only three cases out of nine, whose average number of fits was one a week or under, were the beneficial effects of the drug very strongly marked. In one such case, while the fits did not come on for fourteen weeks, yet the mental con- dition of the patient during that time was weaker and less rational than usual. This is the only case in which this result was seen, and it may have been a mere coincidence. Even in that case the irritability was lessened along with the intelligence. In regard to the causes of the epilepsy in those benefited by the drug, so far as they were assigned or could be ascertained, they were various. In the seven cases most benefited four were from childhood or puberty, it was brought on by drinking in one case, it was the result of a blow on the head in another case, and in another the cause was unknown. In one case where there are marked signs of organic disease of the motor
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