Clinical lectures on important symptoms. On giddiness / by Thomas Grainger Stewart.

  • Thomas Grainger Stewart
Date:
1884
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on important symptoms. On giddiness / by Thomas Grainger Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in cases where squinting occurs. But such cases have also been observed. In lesions of the cerebral peduncles giddiness is some¬ times seen, but usually it results from squinting due to paralysis of some of the muscles of the eye. Such a case as that which I am about to state, suggests that other influ¬ ences operate here. It is recorded by Rosenthal and quoted by Nothnagel. A woman of thirty-nine had suffered for two years from headache, giddiness, and dimness of sight, with paralysis of the right side. The giddiness was so great that the patient preferred the recumbent position. Severe giddi¬ ness set in if, even when recumbent, she turned on her left side. She had paralysis of the third left cranial nerve with paralysis of the lower branches of the facial and of the limbs; on the right, distinct anaesthesia. After death, it was found that a tumour of the size of a pea lay between the crura cerebri. The innermost part of the right cerebral peduncle was softened. In the interior of the left crus cerebri there was a cist of the size of a pea, which destroyed the left third nerve, and another tumour of the size of a bean involved the right oculo motor. I think you will agree with me in believing that although the squinting may have been a factor in the production of giddiness, there certainly was a further influence in operation, seeing that the symptom was so severe. In lesions of the corpora quadrigemina giddiness some¬ times occurs, at all events staggering gait has been observed in some cases. In illustration of giddiness from this lesion, I select a case recorded by my friend Dr. Duffin, of King’s College, London. The patient was a steady and powerful man, and the earliest symptom—a sense of dragging at the back of the neck—occurred about four months before his death. The walk early became unsteady, and there were repeated attacks of vertigo which diminished when the eyes were closed. Headache and contraction of the muscles of the neck and spine were prominent symptoms. Sight soon became impaired, and blindness speedily followed with well-marked double optic neuritis. The intelligence became obscured only about a fortnight before death. He died