A treatise on the theory and practice of medicine / by John Syer Bristowe.

  • John Syer Bristowe
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the theory and practice of medicine / by John Syer Bristowe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1186/1322 (page 1140)
    douche. Dr. Reynolds specially recommends the application of narrow strips of blister round the affected limbs. Anfesthesia also is sometimes remediable by faradism. But for this, especially if there be at the same time coldness of surface and imperfect circulation, as also for the cure of hysterical contractions, galvanism is probably preferable. It is mainly in cases of hysterical antesthesia that Dr. Burq's' metallo- therapeutic treatment has come into vogue. This consists in the local application of some metal to which, by experiment, the patient is found to be sensitive. The metals employed are gold, silver, iron, copper, and zinc. To ascertain which of these is appropriate, discs of each must be applied in succession for two or three minutes each to the region about to be operated upon. This point having been determined, bands or groups of discs of the selected metal must be kept for a quarter of an hour or so in close contact with the affected surface by a bandage or other means. It would appear that the result is that the affected part (whether it be the skin or organ of special sense) gradually recovers its sensibility, and that associated with this there is a return of warmth and circulation, and of muscular power. But it would also appear : that whatever improvement there is on the one side of the body is at the expense of the opposite side, which becomes antesthetic in proportion as the other recovers ; and,^ moreover, that the recovery is only temporary. The sudden cure of hysteria in any of its forms is almost always possible under the influence of powerful emotional excitement. Thus a sudden alarm that the house is on fire will sometimes cause a woman who has been paraplegic for years to rush from her bed with the full use of her limbs ; the unexpected infliction of sudden and severe pain gene- rally suffices to make the dumb cry out at the top of her natural voice; the promise that if a long-closed hand opens by a certain day it shall have a valuable trinket placed in it generally calls for fulfilment. XVII. CATALEPSY, ECSTASY, SOMNAMBULISM, AND OTHER CONDITIONS ALLIED TO HYSTERIA. A large number of curious nervous phenomena—motor, sensory, emo- tional, and intellectual—occur, which are difficult to describe save by the help of illustrative cases, difficult to classify, and diflicult to attach to specific lesions or specific conditions of the nervous system. In a large proportion of cases they originate in powerful mental excitement, and more especially in such as is connected with religious fervour; they some- times also arise from imitation or moral contagion. Young persons, from the period of commencing puberty to the termination of adolescence, and more particularly females, or males of emotional temperament, chiefly suffer. The patients are often distinctly hysterical; and not unfrequently hysterical paroxysms and some of the various other phenomena which • See report hy] MM. Charcot, Luys, and Duiaontpallier, quoted in the British Medical Journal, May 19, 1877.