Brain surgery.

  • Starr, M. Allen (Moses Allen), 1854-1932.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brain surgery. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    TREPHINING FOR INSANITY. Traumatic Insanity in Relation to Insanity in General. Report of Cases Operated Upon. Trephining in General Paresis. Useless- uess of the Operation. While it is perfectly evident to any one familiar with mental disease that trephining has no place as a method of treatment in general, yet there are a few cases upon record in which the symptoms of mental derangement have developed immediately after a seri- ous injury to the head with or without depressed frac- ture of the skull. The percentage of cases of insanity traceable to traumatism is small. Kiernan' states that 45 cases in 2,200 cases under his care were trau- matic. Hays'' found 61 cases in 2,500 under his ob- servation; two per cent is therefore a fair estimate. In these cases the apparent connection between the injury and the development of the mental symptoms is so clear as to leave little doubt that the insanity is clue to the trauma. Under these circumstances tre- phining has been thought of and has been successfully practised as a method of treatment of the mental disease. Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald reported such a case as 'Jour. Nerv. and Med. Dis., July, 1881. '-^ Amer. Lancet, November, 1891.