Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston.

  • Thomas Clouston
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    my patients had ceased to take the medicine, the number of fits taken in three weeks by the 20 patients who had been taking the medicine was 150, being 18 in the first week after giving it up, 76 in the second week, and 56 in the third week. In the fourth week the number fell to 39 ; but even this was four times more numerous than when taking the medicine. In the fifth week they took 46 fits, and two of them had maniacal attacks. Thus, instead of 2*3 fits per patient for three weeks, the number at once rose to 7'5, when the medicine was discontinued. In 5 cases the fits in these three weeks were more frequent than they had been at first; in 13 cases they were fewer, and in two they were equal in number. The man who took most frequent fits, and was most nearly cured, took only one fit in the first three weeks; but in the fifth week he began to see the light, very frequently and very near. After this I began the medicine in all the cases. General observations in regard to the effects of the medicine.— The preceding observations may be considered to some extent satisfactory, and to some extent unsatisfactory. My first object was to attain scientific accuracy in the method of making the experiments. Without this no accurate results could possibly have been attained. Certain of the results, viz., those relating to then umber of the fits, to the patients' weight, temperature, and pulse, and to the doses of the medicine, may be regarded as accurate so far as the number of cases under treatment can give any result. If the experiments were repeated in a suf- ficient number of cases, general laws might be laid down in regard to those points. The results in regard to the mental state, the general health, the character of the fits, and the varieties of the disease where absolute accuracy of observation is unattainable, may point towards the truth ; but the num- ber of observations on these points would require to be in- creased a thousand fold to establish general laws. Still, the knowledge arrived at by such a series of experiments, limited as their number was, is as light itself compared to the dark- ness of mind resulting from treating selected, scattered cases in the usual unsystematic, unscientific manner. I think that if we treated all our patients in asylums (where we have ample opportunities of doing so) in the same way for five years, we should then perhaps be able to argue the question of the value of medical treatment in insanity. I cannot but think that my observations furnish, at all events, an a priori assumption that medical treatment may in certain of our cases do much good. I have tried the bromide of potassium in all sorts of cases in the same way as in epilepsy, but as yet I have not had a
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