On failure of brain power (encephalasthenia); its nature and treatment.

  • Julius Althaus
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On failure of brain power (encephalasthenia); its nature and treatment. 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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    temporary influence. Other cardiac tonics, which are chiefly of use in paresis of the cardiac centre, are digitahs, strophan- thus, convallaria majaHs, and adonis vernaHs. In paresis of the vasomotor centre, ergotine is often helpful, as it tends to increase the tone of the muscular coat of the blood-vessels by its special action on that centre ] while in atony of the gastric centre, and the atonic form of dyspepsia resulting therefrom, nux vomica or strychnine, with bismuth, may be given before meals, and hydrochloric acid—of which there is an insufficiency in the stomach in that condition— after meals. Cerebrine Alpha. Another nerve-tonic which may be used, more especially in cases of loss of power, is a sterilised extract prepared for me by Messrs. Brady and Martin, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, from the brains of healthy young animals, and which I have called Cerebrine Alpha. A paper giving my experience on this sub- ject has recently appeared in the Lancet.^^-^ In this place I will only say that I consider cerebrine alpha hypodermically injected to be a nervine tonic of considerable efficacy in certain conditions mainly characterised by loss of nerve-power, and a valuable addition to our older nervine remedies, with which it may often be used in conjunction. A gentleman, aged 60 years, who had been neurotic for many years, was under treatment with this extract when several grave misfortunes happened to him, viz., loss of a large sum of money, and the serious illness of his wife and daughter. While formerly under similar circumstances he would have been completely prostrated, he was able to go on with his work, and although he keenly felt the distress caused by these events, he never lost his self-control. Another patient, a man aged 42 years, whose thoughts had for some time past been run- ning on hardly anything but the various forms of commit- ting suicide, the pros and cons of which he used to discuss s