Medical diagnosis : with special reference to practical medicine. A guide to the knowledge and discrimination of diseases / By J. M. Da Costa ... Illustrated with engravings on wood.

  • Jacob Mendes Da Costa
Date:
1895
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical diagnosis : with special reference to practical medicine. A guide to the knowledge and discrimination of diseases / By J. M. Da Costa ... Illustrated with engravings on wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    are slight, others are very severe and do not cease until the hearing is totally lost. Many cases progress slowly to recover}-. To return to vertigo connected with cerebral or cerebro-s])inal disease. There is a kind which Trousseau especially has described. The abnormal sensation is very short in its duration, but severe ; the patient momentarily loses all consciousness. The vertigo recurs at uncertain times : while actively engaged, sometimes while in bed and half asleej). The head feels heavy after an attack, and the mind is temporarily stupefied ; otherwise the health is good. This type of vertigo is dangerous. It is often the 'precursor of cpUepsy, and after a time becomes associated with convulsions. Another kind of vertigo is that which arises from overwork of the brain. At times giddiness is the only symptom of disorder, essential vertigo, and is present for many years, the patient enjoy- ing otherwise excellent health. I have known a number of such instances in which the tendency ajipeared to have been inhei'ited. If it do not break out until late in life, it is a matter of more serious concern. In larynr/cal vertigo*' there is a close connection with epileptic seizures. The chief symptoms are tickling or burning in the larynx, followed by vertigo, loss of consciousness, and spasmodic movements in the face and limbs. The larynx is healthy; but in a case observed by Sommerbrodt a polypus existed, the removal of which cured the affection. Besides headache and vertigo, there are various unnatural sen- sations, such as a feeling of momentary unconsciousness without giddiness; a feeling within the cranium of weight, of constric- tion ; the feeling described as a rush of blood to the head; ocular spectra, and other false perceptions of many kinds and of every gradation. But I shall do no more than advert to this subject, and shall now consider some of the morbid phenomena of the special senses, particularly of the senses of sight and hearing. DERANGEMENT OF SPECIAL SENSES. Vision.—The sense of vision may be exalted, impaired, or per- verted in disorders of the brain, whether organic or functional. It is exalted in inflammation ; impaired, even totally lost, in soft- * Giisquet, Practitioner for August, 1878; Charcot, Progres Medical, No. 17, 1879.