On the efficacy of the bromide of potassium in epilepsy and certain psychical affections / by S.W. Duckworth Williams.

  • Williams, Samuel White Duckworth.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the efficacy of the bromide of potassium in epilepsy and certain psychical affections / by S.W. Duckworth Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to arrive at the truth as nearly as possible by pursuing the following course:—I took the rate of the pulse in every epileptic under treatment each day for seven days, an hour before and an hour after the administration of the medicine, and with the following average results :—[/See Table Fa.] From this table it will be seen that the rapidity of the pulse was affected in by far the majority of patients in whom the fits were diminished, and that in some cases the heart's beats were reduced by as many as twenty in a minute. One lady, suffering from frequent emotional excitement, to whom I administered the medicine, was very markedly affected in this way for the first week or two she was under treatment; thus quoting from my note-book :— . March 15th.—Miss E. very voluble, emotional, and excited. Pulse 100; tolerably strong and full; ordered Bromide of Potassium, 5 grains, twice a day. 16th.—Took medicine at 10 a.m.; at 11.30 a.m., pulse about 90, feeble and irregular, now rapid, now slow ; she is still emotional, but less excitable. 17th.—Headache ; medicine omitted for a day. 18th.—Head better; pulse 90 before medicine, 75 after- wards ; appetite good. 20th.—Pulse 80; getting excitable again; medicine increased to grains ten bis. die. 21st.—Pulse 64, very feeble; she is very quiet, and quite rational, but seems languid and weak, and hovers constantly over the fire. 22nd.—Pulse 64 ; medicine reduced. 24th.-Pulse 80. The use of the Bromide of Potassium renders epileptics more tractable, more sociable, more amenable to the ethics of society, and less irritable and captious ; less prone to be put out of temper by trivial causes. Even this can be proved by statistics, for whereas during the five months the epileptics