Observations relative to the state of the skull and of the brain in congenital chronic hydrocephalus, and to idiocy and paralysis attending it : with cases / by Francis Battersby, M.B.

  • Battersby, Francis.
Date:
1851
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations relative to the state of the skull and of the brain in congenital chronic hydrocephalus, and to idiocy and paralysis attending it : with cases / by Francis Battersby, M.B. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    twenty-seven pounds; Esquirol, thirty-six pounds;^ and Leche], fifty pounds.^ Forestus, J. P. Frank, Stoerck, Girtanner, Plenck, Sprengel, Feiler, Goelis, Rudolphi,and others, haverecognised the existence of hydrocephalus in the embryo, and in new-born children. Richter says, this disease can only form in children, and the small num- ber of adults in whom it is observed have been affected with it from their earliest age.^ Boehmer and Wigand assume that chil- dren are born disposed to this disease, and it is often developed, according to Rosenstein, Struve, and Loder, a few days or months after birth.'* Hydrocephalus generally proves fatal soon after birth, but it does not always carry with it the idea of the near death of the in- dividual. Dr West says, on examining the date of the commencement of the disease in fifty cases (fourteen of which came under my own observation, and the remaining thirty-six are recorded by- various writers), that some symptoms of it were observed in forty- six cases before the child was six months old, that in twelve of them the malady was congenital, and that in nineteen more it came before the completion of the third month.^ I have notes of thirty cases aged from six to seventy-nine years. Kartell and Malacarne give one each, aged seventeen years ; Loder, twenty-two ; Buttner, thirty-one; Schneider, forty-three; Ecmark, forty-five; Schom- berg, forty-eight; Gall, fifty-four; and two by Goelis, aged seventy-one and seventy-nine years. Chronic hydrocephalus is not constantly a fatal disorder. Cardinal died of fever and diarrhoea at twenty-nine years of age ; DrFour^adeV patient, of pneumonia ; Dr Lee's/ of cholera; one of Conquest's cases, of pertussis ; Dr Banks',^ of phthisis, at the age of thirty years; and Dr Dickinson's, of bronchitis,^ &c. Dr Monro states, *' I have endeavoured to prove that there is not only a mere extension of the brain in chronic hydrocephalus, but also an absorption of part of its substance.^ Against this Dr West says, it was long supposed there was a real destruction of cerebral substance in these cases, and that the brain had actually melted down, as it were, beneath the encroachments of the fluid. This opinion was the more readily entertained, from the circum- stance, that the attenuated brain often gave way under examina- ' Gaz. Medicale, Janvier 24, 1835. 2 Meckel, loc.cit., T. i., p. 272. ' Bibliotheque Gcrmanique, T. viii., p. 375. < Breschet, loc. cit., p. 510. » Diseases of Children, p. 84. « Lancette Fran,, Vol. iv. p. 188. Stewart on Diseases of Children, p. SfiS. * Dublin Medical Journal, N. S., Vol. i., p. 514. » Mr Dickinson, in a private note, informs me that the age of his patient was thirteen months, and not years, as printed in the Lancet. ' On Hydrocephalus, p. 134.