Volume 2
Elements of the theory and practice of physic, designed for the use of students / By George Gregory.
- George Gregory
- Date:
- 1829
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Elements of the theory and practice of physic, designed for the use of students / By George Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.
56/572 page 52
![mai , ea Ske . 52 PALSY. & « ii 3 ’ M re ae aS ae 4 ae 2 a ; Mpegs PALSY FROM LEAD. ee ae ‘th By far the most common, however, of all. the causes $ of par tial palsy, is ‘the poison of lead, which appears to exert some peculiarly noxious power over the nerves of the fore-arm and hand. Innu- -merable instances of*this, which has. commonly been called the saturnine palsy, are met with among plumbers, painters, workers in lead-mines, manufacturers of white-lead, and others whose occupation exposes them to the influence of this metal.* — It-is cer- tainly a curious circumstance, tbat some constitutions should. be so much more easily effected by the poison of lead than others. There are persons who, ina very short time, suffer severely from it in their general health, while’ others receive no DIS aicuge bias exposed to it during a long series of years. ; | an The fumes and the external application of lead in plasters and lotions, will pro- duce palsy; also, want of care in washing the hands after painting with it, Sir Astley Cooper quotes a case, in which a collyrium produced the disease, in the upper eyelid: The smell of the clothes of the workmen, smeared with whitelead, often reproduce it when they are recovering; sleeping in a room newly painted has produced it; arsenic and quicksilver also catiie palsy; the contact of the pow- der of arsenic on the fingers in making pills, Sere a more violent apes than that which is the result of lead. The symptoms of palsy from lead are thus described oo Clutterbuck: A anak ness of the hands.is the first thing perceived: the patient is unable to grasp any ‘ thing with firmness. This weakness seldom extends itself above the wrists, but he is tormented with pains in the shoulders and upper arms, resembling chronic rheumatism. ‘The weakness soon increases, so that he loses altogether the use of his hands: He is unable to support the hand in a line with the forearm, and he can with difficulty lift it to his head.. The fingers’ are incurvated and he is una- ble voluntarily to extend them;. not that'they are rigidly contracted, for they can . with ease be straightened by any extraneous force; they remain bent, because the tonic powers of the flexor muscles exceeds somewhat that of the extensors: No diminution of the sensibility in the skin is perceived to accompany this paralytic state of the arm; the affection séems confined to the muscles alone: The deg are seldom affected in the same manner as the arms arefound tobe.f. C..° . # + = : : “ye ro ee omy TREATMENT OF HEMIPLEGIA AND PARSE eer S ania? Palsy i iS a. complaint which, from very early times, has been con- sidered almost incurable; nor have the labours of modern patholo- gists succeeded in removing this opprobrium from medica] : science. It is sufficient to mark the numbers of paralytic persons in our streets, to form ap idea of the inutility of mecheal pine in. this disease. Fore Palsies happening in the spring api summer have been cineiiered as. ‘more curable than those which take place in the winter or autumn. When palsy i 1s attended with much wasting of the limbs, itis more dangerous. ‘Boerhaave thought, that those palsies which take place nearest to the head, were most diffi- cult to cure; and he states, ‘that those gradually descending, from superior to inferior parts, are favourable sucreans as they render the superior parts free! from ¥ /. r Fon a full account of the ‘péculiagigies of the paralysis iinet I must refer to Clutterbuck, ‘* On the Poison of Lead.” ' } Cooke, vol. i. p. 110. 1820. quoting Clutterbuck. a - *](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3328975x_0002_0056.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
