On diseases of the spine and of the nerves / by Charles Bland Radcliffe, John Netten Radcliffe, J. Warburton Begbie, Francis Edmund Ainstie, and John Russell Reynolds.

Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On diseases of the spine and of the nerves / by Charles Bland Radcliffe, John Netten Radcliffe, J. Warburton Begbie, Francis Edmund Ainstie, and John Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    have more unequivocal empirical evidence of the good resulting from their use. In chronic cases the one grand indication of treatment, as it seems to me, is to improve the nutrition of the cord, and the medicine best calculated to carry out this indication, coddiver oil, sesquichloride of iron, phosphorus in one form or other, arsenic, and possibly bichloride of mercury, which latter preparation, when properly used, I believe to be tonic and antiseptic in a high degree, and in many respects much more analogous in its action to arsenic than to any of the photo-com- pounds of mercury in common use. The local means for promoting the recovery of the paralyzed muscles are certainly of not less importance than the general means, possibly of much greater importance, and these local means are very various. The efficacy of frictions and shampooings appears to be indis- putable. The efl&cacy of proper movements can only be doubted by those who are unacquainted with the results arrived at by the move- ment cure, and by svstematic movements of one kind or another, with or without the help of niechanical apparatus.^. The efficacy of faradi- zation has been abundantly proved, and there is good reason to believe that this is not the only mode of using electricity which will be of great service: that in fact statical positive electricity, or the interrupted galvanic current, or the application of the galvanic current in such a way that the paralyzed nerve is acted upon chiefly by the positive pole —a mode of using electricity about which I have spoken elsewhere, and which I have used extensively during the last three or four years —will often be of great service in proper cases. Indeed I should think that the treatment was wanting in very essential particulars if these local means, one and all, were not associated with the general means of treatment, and employed systematically and perseveringly; and especially I should regard it as a great blunder if these local means were deferred so as to allow the paralyzed muscles to lose what when lost is not easily recovered—that is, their irritability and healthy organiza- tion. There are also other local measures which are of great service in the treatment of paralysis, and one of these to which I am disposed to attach especial importance is to protect the paralyzed parts from cold. In many cases, as is well known, these paralyzed parts are cool, and in not a few instances, where the paralysis is incomplete or associated with early rigidity, this paralysis and rigidity is greatest when these parts are coldest. For example, it is no uncommon thing for a par- tially hemiplegic patient whose paralyzed fingers are contracted, stiff, and altogether useless when acted upon by cold, to be able to open his hand and use his fingers with comparative freedom when the hand is warm in bed, or placed in a warm bath, or held a while before the fire. At any rate, I have long been satisfied that the well wrapping up of the paralyzed parts in woollen or silken or India-rubber coverings is an important help in treatment. It would also seem that good of the same kind, much good, may be got from an exhausting apparatus made on the principle of Junot's boot. The effect of such an apparatus, properly used, is to make the