Volume 1

Sajous's analytical cyclopædia of practical medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous and one hundred associate editors.

  • Charles E. de M. Sajous
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sajous's analytical cyclopædia of practical medicine / by Charles E. de M. Sajous and one hundred associate editors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ganic diseases of the brain. In chorea cataleptic phenomena have been met with, and in some instances these have been quite pronounced with states of automatic action resembling certain phases met with in hypnotism especially in children. Epilepsy may be associated with cataleptic symptoms, but we should be careful in the study of these cases to determine whether the latter are not evi¬ dence of true epilepsy. In those cases of supposed catalepsy in which conscious¬ ness is suddenly recovered and the pa¬ tient immediately returns to the nor¬ mal condition, finishes the employment which had been begun before the attack, or continues a sentence that had been interrupted, and acts as though nothing had happened, it is quite probable that the symptoms are epileptic in character. [Dr. Thomas King Chambers says: “Catalepsy is sometimes very brief and sudden. I have a young lady now under my care, for non-assimilative indigestion, of whom I received the following ac¬ counts from a mother of more than ordi¬ nary intelligence and power of observa¬ tion. She said that her daughter was fond of reading aloud, and that some¬ times in the middle of a sentence the voice was suddenly stopped, and a pecul¬ iar stiffness of the whole body would come on and fix the limbs immovably for several minutes. Then it would re¬ lax, and the reading would be continued at the very word it stopped at, the pa¬ tient being quite unconscious that a parenthesis had been snipped out of her sentence, or that anything strange had happened. She grew much better under tonic and restorative treatment, and gradually ceased to have these singular attacks; but after about a month’s interval, as she was one evening engaged in playing a round game of cards, she suddenly went off into a regular epi¬ leptic fit, which was followed by sleep, and she did not recover consciousness till the next morning. This fit could be accounted for by certain errors in diges¬ tion, and she has had no recurrence of it, or of the catalepsy, though four months have passed over. So I hope it was epilepsy of an intercurrent or curable sort.” One feels that this must have been a vain hope, and, had the history been subsequently continued for a period of a year or more, it would probably have shown that the case was one of epilepsy, and not of the “curable sort.” The next case that he reports is more serious. “But sometimes the epi¬ lepsy preceded by catalepsy is of a more serious sort. I remember a much-re¬ spected lecturer in this metropolis in whom the petit trial of epilepsy assumed this form. He used to be attacked some¬ times in the middle of a sentence, with his hand wielded in demonstration be¬ fore his class. He Avould remain per¬ fectly stiff for a minute or so, with mouth open and arm extended, and then resume his sentence just where he had dropped it quite unconscious that any¬ thing had happened. After a time the seizures assumed the more usual and more fatal form.” (Reynolds’s “System of Med.” [Hartshorne], vol. i, pp. 654- 55). I have seen several cases of epi¬ lepsy, especially in children, the first symptoms of which simulated those of catalepsy. J. T. Eskridge.] Cataleptic symptoms in eight rachitics aged from eighteen months to three and one-half years. The phenomena were manifested by the persistence of the posi¬ tion given to a limb. When the leg was raised, for instance, it was maintained in this position for a long time, often as long as fifteen to twenty minutes, in one case even as long as forty minutes and then falling very slowly. If the position of the limb or parts of it was changed, even to a very uncomfortable attitude, the immobility would be maintained for an equal period of time. This phenom¬ enon was more constant and distinct in the leg than in the arm. There was no tremor in the limb; during this cata¬ leptic state the reflex excitability seemed diminished. Epstein (Revue Men. des Mai. de l’Enfance, Jan., ’97). Insanity, especially stuporous insanity, the graver forms of melancholia, cata¬ tonia (of Kahlbaum), and paretic de-