On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D.

  • Frederick Bateman
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D. 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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    less interesting on that account; and here I would ask what was the ultimate cause of the symptoms observed in this patient ? I have heard the term nervousness applied to such cases, but this word throws no light on their pathology. Nervousness, like hysteria, is a word frequently used as a cloak to our ignorance. Is it not possible that the abnormal symptoms might be diie to some form of ursemic poisoning ? There were two cir- cumstances rather favouring this view—^viz., the partial retention of a fluid which had for years been periodically thrown off, and the frequent partial suppression of the urinary secretion. In reference to this latter hypothesis, it is true that the volumetric analysis of the urine (made at a time when the secretion was in its normal quantity) did not disclose a predominance of any particular ingredient; stiU, I cannot help thinking that in this and similar cases, where the symp- toms are intermittent, they may be due to some^ element in the blood which has a deleterious efiect upon the cerebral circidation. It will be observed that there is no abolition of a'faculty in such cases as the above, but simply an obstacle to the mani- festation of such faculty. The faculty of language is present, but one of the processes is wanting by which it is -brought into communication with the external world. Left Hemiplegia with Aphasia; No disease of frontal convolutions; Extensive disease of right hemisphere ; Vegetations on aortic and mitral valves ; Fibrinous blocks in the Spleen. William Lemon, a gasfitter, ret 40, was admitted into the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on January 4, 1868, with the following antece- dent history :—He had been ailing more or less since ]\Iidsummer, but had been able to continue his worlv till early in November. A fort- night later he was suddenly seized with left hemiplegia, and consider- able embarrassment of speech, to such an extent that a stranger could not understand him at all. His power of speech gradually improved, and at the end of a fortnight he could speak nearly as well as usual. Condition on admission.—There is complete motor paralysis of left leg and arm ; anaasthesia only partial, if any. He has no pain or abnonnal sensation in the head, and the organs of special sense are un- impaired, and there now remains but very slight embarrassment in his speech. Urine sp. gr. 1023, freely acid, slightly albuminous and