Essays on the theory of convulsive diseases / by Marshall Hall.

  • Marshall Hall
Date:
[1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the theory of convulsive diseases / by Marshall Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    has been so employed as to appear to give to one form of this affection a distinct existence and importance—I mean that of laryngismus ; and this has led to much confusion and error in treating of this affection. It is, in fact, as if we were to treat of cough, or any other mere symptom of disease, as a distinct disease. Laryngismus is a symptom of disease, often a very severe one, but still only a symptom. It has been further distin¬ guished by the epithet stridulous, which, however, is unneces¬ sary, if we be only informed on the subject. There is only one kind of laryngismus, and this one is not always stridulous. In its worst and most dangerous form, indeed, it is a silent, because a complete, closure of the larynx. The term laryngismus may be retained. Without inten¬ tion on his part, the proposer of it chose a designation which associates itself very appropriately with that of another partial form of convulsive disease—viz. strabismus. And other symptoms of convulsive affection may receive designations which will assimilate equally well together and with these ; such are cheirismus and podismus, for the spasm of the wrists, the hands, or the fingers, or of the feet or toes, or the carpo¬ pedal spasm, as these have been called; whilst the term sphincterismus may be used to designate the spasmodic affec¬ tions of the sphincter ani, or neck of the bladder, assuming the form of tenesmus or strangury. Let the termination in ismus be used only to designate a symptom, and that of a purely nervous or spasmodic or con¬ vulsive character. Laryng«$mws will henceforth be viewed merely as a sym¬ ptom, as cough is a symptom, to be traced to its origin,—to the special disease on which it depends,—and will no longer be confounded with larynges, as I fear it still is by some prac¬ titioners. A reform in nomenclature is at once the usual result of progress in medical science, and the efficient cause of im¬ provements in the art and practice of medicine. § 3. The Predisposition. The predisposition to convulsive affection, and especially to that form of it which has been designated laryngismus, is
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