A case of gastric tetany, with an account of the microscopic appearances found in the medulla and spinal cord / by Walter K. Hunter, M.D., B.Sc., Assistant Physician, Royal Infirmary ... from Dr. Lindsay Steven's Wards in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

  • Hunter, Walter King.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of gastric tetany, with an account of the microscopic appearances found in the medulla and spinal cord / by Walter K. Hunter, M.D., B.Sc., Assistant Physician, Royal Infirmary ... from Dr. Lindsay Steven's Wards in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. 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.

    4/18 (page 82)
    our observation, and in part to the fact that we could find no relation or friend of the patient who seemed to know any particulars of either her personal or her family history. As to its hein^ a case of tetany there can be little doubt, for the convulsive movements were characteristic of those seen in that disease. We are, however, without an}?- definite knowledge as to the condition during life of the patient’s digestive apparatus. But the post-mortem appearances of the stomach strongly suggested a gastric disturbance of considerable duration, and the history of headaches and of being “ somewhat addicted to drink, though not recently,” may also be taken as evidence in favour of that view. The condition of the kidneys found post mortem made one consider the possibility of the convulsions being uraemic in origin. Diseased kidnej^s, by preventing elimination of poisonous material, might quite well determine the onset of convulsive movements. But then the convulsions in this case were so characteristically those of tetany that we should not be justified in regarding them as entirel} due to uraemia. Moreover, Dr. Trevelyan, in the paper already mentioned, draws special attention to the fact tluit it is not at all un- common to find nephritis associated with cases of gastric tetany. The possibility of the case being one of antipyrin or antifebrin poisoning seems very remote, for I am infoniied on good authority that neither of these drugs has ever been known to produce such symptoms as seen in this case. T. ])., aet. 41, a domestic servant, was admitted to ward viii. of the Glasgow Royal Infirmaiy on 28th Sep- tember, 1898, at () r.:\i., said to be suffering from some unknown form of j^oisoning. She had been in the habit of taking powders for the relief of lieadache, and two of these powders were brought to the infirmary by her friends. There is some doubt as to their nature, but the chemist in Arbroath from whom she had obtained powders since 1892, reports that tliey frequently supplied her with antipyrin, and that on subjecting one of the two powders to chemical tests they found it to consist of ten grains of antifebrin, which they say she must have obtained in Glasgow.