Case histories in neurology : a selection of histories setting forth the diagnosis, treatment and post-mortem findings in nervous disease / by E. W. Taylor.
- Taylor, E. W. (Edward Wyllys), 1866-1932
- Date:
- 1911
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Case histories in neurology : a selection of histories setting forth the diagnosis, treatment and post-mortem findings in nervous disease / by E. W. Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
298/316 page 292
![the mind was perfectly clear, and capable, in a measure, of controlling the spasm. When the patient was seen, follow- ing this period of motor disturbance, she was exhausted and drowsy, having some difficulty in speech from the mus- cular spasm, and a very slight and somewhat doubtful appearance of external strabismus. She was transferred to a hospital, where she remained, under close supervision and careful nursing, for one week, with constantly diminishing attacks of muscular spasm. Further investigation during her stay at the hospital disclosed vari- ous obsessional traits, an example of which was a marked dis- like of food, associated with a feeling of more or less disgust; this was traced to an experience at the age of eleven, when she was forced to eat calves' brain, which she forthwith vomited. She also had a curious and unexplained dislike to a member of her family, whose presence, she said, made her nervous ; she had had two love affairs, the first some- what disastrous, and the second still going on; her home life was, in certain respects, uncomfortable; she was extremely sensitive and on the whole uncommunicative. She felt that the muscular spasm relieved her nervous tension. At the end of the week, she left the hospital practically free from the spasmodic movements; on returning home she was able to control the spasm by the exercise of much determination. She was, however, unable to get over her obsessions, although they no longer dominated her; she went on with her work. Thereafter she improved; had good nights, and increased in her capacity of self-control. A very recent report stated that she has lived a useful life for the past two years, and is practically free from the affection for which she first sought relief. Diagnosis. This case may properly be included under the Hysterica] affections; the violent spasmodic movements limited to certain groups of muscles, irregular in onset and wholly beyond the control of the will in their most extreme manifestations, point toward this diagnosis. Chorea is to be excluded because of the peculiar limitation of the spasm, together with its violence, which, except in rare instances, does not occur in choreic affections. Its resemblance to an](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21001698_0298.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
