A manual of diseases of the nervous.

  • Gowers, William Richard editor, Sir.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of diseases of the nervous. 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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    DISEASES OE THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. INTRODUCTION. A classification of Diseases of the Nervous System, at once scientific, exact, and convenient for systematic description, is not at present possible. If we attempt to classify the diseases according to either seat or nature, we are met at once by difficulties which prevent any complete arrangement. These difficulties arise from the fact that many diseases affect more than one part of the nervous system, that the precise seat of other maladies is unknown, and that we are still ignorant of the nature of a considerable number of diseases. A rough division is often made into two broad classes of “organic” and “functional” disease. The first class, that of “organic diseases,” comprehends those in which there is always a visible lesion, manifesting sometimes the morbid process which constitutes the disease, sometimes only the ultimate result of that process. The second class, that of “ functional diseases,” is less definite, comprehending (1) those diseases that consist only in a disturbance of function, and are there- fore properly so designated; and (2) many diseases which have this in common with true functional disease, that they are transient and not permanent, and that they are not known to depend on organic changes. But there is also a large class of diseases in which no constant lesion has been discovered, but which are not transient, and cannot well be placed in either of these classes. This simple classification is therefore inadequate. It may be well to consider in what respect it needs alteration to meet the requirements of our present knowledge. The term “ organic disease,” as commonly used, means visible disease. But visibility is relative; it depends on the means of vision. The application of the microscope to pathology immediately increased the range of organic disease, and a similar increase has resulted, in our own day, from the use of staining agents, which render visible many changes that could not before be seen. Still it remains true that the degree of alteration determines visibility. Molecular changes in nutrition, considered as such, must be colossal to be detected. Such