Clinical memoranda : memoranda of medical clinic at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1869-1870 / by Joseph Jones. The yellow fever, sanitary condition, and vital statistics of New Orleans during its military occupation, the four years, 1862-5 / by Stanford E. Chaillé.

  • Jones, Joseph, 1833-1896.
Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical memoranda : memoranda of medical clinic at Charity Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1869-1870 / by Joseph Jones. The yellow fever, sanitary condition, and vital statistics of New Orleans during its military occupation, the four years, 1862-5 / by Stanford E. Chaillé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The alterations of the brain and the symptoms of insanity, in this case, were referred to the action of the syphilitic poison. It has been established by the researches of various observers, that the brain may be affected indirectly by syphilis, as in caries, necrosis, exostosis of the cranial bones, gummy tumor of the skull, or deposits in the dura-mater, which membrane has been compared to an internal periosteum. These lesions may excite inflammation of the dura-mater, which may extend to the arachnoid, pia-mater and surface of the • hemispheres. It has in like manner been shown that the brain may be directly affected by syphilis; the nervous substance being the seat of syphilitic gummy deposit followed by softening, and cases have been recorded, in which white and red softening of the cerebral substance have been caused by syphilis. In the neuralgic affections, paralysis, epilepsy and dementia, following the appearance of the constitutional effects of syphilis, good results and even effectual cures may be obtained by the judicious use of the Bi-chloride and Bin-iodide of Mercury and the Iodide of Potassium. Several cases of an intractable character, attended with in- tense pain in the head, cerebral syptoms and partial paralysis, have occured in my hospital practice during the past fifteen months, and have been relieved by mercurials and the Iodide of Potassium. One sixteenth of a grain of the Bichloride or of the Bin-iodide of Mercury has been administered in combination with Iodide of Potassium three times a day. In the severest cases of nervous derangement the Iodide of Potassium has been used freely, in doses varying from one to two scruples three times a day. Case IV.—Dementia, Paralysis and Death ; Clots in Corpora Striata and Optic Thalami. In the other case the patient, a negro-woman, was brought into the hospital in a dull listless, speechless state, with loss of muscular power, and want of co-ordination of the muscular movements, and it was said by her companions that she had been the victim of sorcery or witchcraft. The disease was said to have been