Epileptic and other convulsive affections of the nervous system, their pathology and treatment.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epileptic and other convulsive affections of the nervous system, their pathology and treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    of inaction, and not of action. Of this there can be no doubt. Nor can there be any doubt that the state of these hemispheres is one of comparative inaction in partial epileptiform convulsion, for the utter bewilderment and the inability to collect and control the thoughts are signs that cannot be misinterpreted. There is also good reason to believe that the occurrence of epileptiform convulsion is favoured by a state of func- tional inactivity in the cerebral hemispheres, and an- tagonised by the opposite state. 1. In chronic softening of the brain the fits are preceded by unquestionable and often very marked impairment of the mental faculties, and in some cases the mind may be a total wreck. Fire and energy are dying out, and dulness and drowsiness point to the coming coma, of which they are the forecast shadows. The brain, also, is blighted, not inflamed. It is pallid, whiter than it ought to be^ deficient in red spots, in parts softer than natural, and on microscopic examination this softened substance is found to consist of broken-down brain-tissue, with a greater or less number of cells containing oil, and sometimes red- dened with blood-corpuscles (for haemorrhage is a common consequence of softening), but without any of the products of true inflammation—exudation and pus- corpuscles. 2. Impairment of the mental faculties, progressively increasing, is also a prominent symptom in chronic menin- gitis—impairment which would seem to be more marked by peevishness, impatience, fidgetiness, and a disposition to delirium, than by dulness. The mind wanders a little in the evening or at night, and not unfrequently this wan- dering may settle down into insanity. Or there may be no positive symptoms of any kind. After death the prin- cipal sign of disorder is effusion of serum beneath the arachnoid or into the ventricles, and this is often the only