On softening of the brain arising from anxiety & undue mental exercise and resulting in impairment of mind / Forbes Winslow.

  • Winslow, Forbes, 1810-1874.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On softening of the brain arising from anxiety & undue mental exercise and resulting in impairment of mind / Forbes Winslow. 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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    It is extremely difficult to generalize satisfactorily the peculiar symptoms of this description of morbid alteration. Each case generally presents its own individual charac- teristics. I may, however, observe, that the attacks were not often—until the disease became much more advanced—connected with a morbid condition of the motor power. In all the cases of softening occurring at an early period of life, I have almost invariably found the morbid condition of brain consequent upon excessive mental labour or anxiety of mind. In four cases, the parties affected had been guilty of onanism to a great extent; in three cases, the system had been frequently salivated with mercury; and in two they had been exposed for a protracted period to the intense heat of the sun without absolutely having a coup de soleiL Superadded to these causes, predisposing the persons to morbid cerebral action, there was an undue exercise of the functions of the brain, occasioned by either excessive application to business or study, or over-anxiety of mind, consequent upon pecuniary or other losses. In most of these cases, the physical symptoms, although they had been overlooked, were nevertheless well-marked, and had existed in several of the cases for some years before evidence of any mental affection presented itself. When the powers of the mind, or, speaking physiologically, the functions of the brain, are exposed to severe and continued exercise, we cannot be too careful in watching the head symp- toms. Of the common physical signs of the approaching mischief I have previously spoken. In three cases which came under my notice, the only symptom of any importance, which existed for four years before the disease became more fully developed, was an intermittent pain, severe in its character, in the posterior