Lectures on some points in the treatment and management of neuroses.

  • Seguin, E. C. (Edward Constant), 1843-1898.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on some points in the treatment and management of neuroses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the practice—aa unscientific and injurious practice, as I do not hesitate to call it when iadiscriminately applied—is still in full blast; necessary bromide treatment is suspended, muscles are cut and recut, an impossible [1) balance of ocu- lar muscular forces being sought for, and glasses are ordered and re-ordered for the same patient. It will take some time yet for this local treatment to find its true le\rel. The de- fective eyes of epileptics should be corrected, but there is the same demand on the part of the pathologicciUy con- ditioned stomach, ovary, foreskin, etc., of our epileptics. In these diseased or disordered or defective and strained organs arise secondary causal intluences which should by all means be removed; but from that to curing epilepsy is a long, long way. And while these causes of irritation are treated the bromide should not be withdrawn, or not wholly. The same remarks apply to that other fashionable treat- ment of epilepsy and hystero-epilepsy, now also happily declining—viz., that by removal of one or both ovaries. Wh: t outrageous cases of useless mutilation have thus oc- curred under the pressure of medical sathority and of popu- lar craze for novelty and fair promises ! The operation of castration in women is undoubtedly sometimes justified, and some few cases of hystero-epilepsy are relieved by it, hut it is a measure to be resorted to only upon the most exact and clear indications, never hapliazard or as a fanciful last resort. Thus, gentlemen, I would make a strong plea for an attempt at a rational treatment of idiopathic epilepsy by a searching examination of the patient and by the careful re- moval of the various secondary causes or exciting condi- tions you may discover. In close connection with this lies the hygiene of epileptics, a subject with which I shall deal in a subsequent lecture. I now pass to the consideration of the routine or pallia-