Medicine.

Date:
[1919?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    445/454 page 409
    tions are common, and there may be mental weakness. Recovery is gradual, and cases are liable to relapse. What is the Treatment ? Best in bed and isolation are important, with arsenic given in increasing doses. Where movements are very violent,, chloral is a valuable aid, alone or combined with bromides. Later, open air life and regulated exercise, with tonics. PARALYSIS AGITANS. (Parkinson’s Disease.) What is the Nature of this Condition ? It is characterised by progressive muscular weakness, constant rhythmical tremor while awake, and later a striking posture and gait. It is commonest in old men, without obvious cause or definite pathological changes, save those of senile degeneration. Describe the Symptoms. The onset is usually gradual with general muscular weakness. Tremor appears first in one or both hands, or in feet. At the outset this is transitory, and controllable by will and voluntary movement, but later, as more muscles are involved, it is persistent during both rest and movement, and is incontrollable. The tremor may completely affect one side before it involves the other. The head usually escapes. The tremor is short, rapid, and rhythmic, and includes joint movements, e.y. “pill-rolling” action of thumb and fingers, etc. There is distinct muscular rigidity producing a characteristic posture and gait. The body is Lent forward when the patient stands, the face is expression¬ less, immobile, and rnask-like (Parkinsonian mask), the forearms and hands are flexed, and the fingers bent as if holding a pen. The knees are also bent. When he walks bis stops are at first slow and shuffling, but become quicker
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