The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    119/684 (page 93)
    CATARRH CATALEPSY, OR TRANCE (Greek, kata, “ down ” ; lepsis, “ seizing,” from lambano, “ I take ”). Catalepsy, or trance, is a condi- tion in which an individual—very frequently, but not always, an excitable, hysterical female—sud- denly seems to lose all consciousness of surrounding objects. She re- mains fixed in one position, but if that is altered by anybody standing by, the new position is maintained instead of the former. In this state the individual remains for a time, varying from minutes to hours, or days, and then suddenly recovers, knowing nothing of what has passed in the interval. The complaint is rare and many of its symptoms are singular, so that some physicians who have never witnessed an ex- ample of it are disposed to regard it in every case as an imposture ; but there is no doubt of its being a real disease. The fact that cataleptics have been interred alive has given rise to much uneasiness in the minds of many, but the period which elapses between death and burial in the United Kingdom is generally sufficient to prevent such an oc- currence. Allied to catalepsy is ecstasy, where the individual seems buried in contemplation of some serious subject. This, too, mostly occurs in women and is mainly hysterical. CATALEPSY, CAUSES OF A highly nervous or irritable temperament is the chief predis- posing cause of catalepsy, and the disease is capable of being induced by terror or other violent emotions of the mind, and by various corpor- eal irritations, particularly those of the stomach, suppressed menstru- ation, repelled chronic eruptions, and plethora. Treatment should be directed to removal of the causes (hysteria, neurotic troubles and other ailments) to which the cata- leptic condition may be due. CATARACT Cataract is a disease of the crys- talline lens. The lens becomes opaque, and obstructs the entrance of light so completely that, when the cataract is fully formed, the patient can merely distinguish light from darkness. The pupil loses its natural blackness, and the whitish surface of the opaque lens is seen just behind it. Cataract is not on the eye, as is popularly supposed, but in it. The mistake arises from confounding cataract with the whitish opacities of the cornea. Treatment by any kind of medi- cation is entirely useless ; the only remedy is the removal of the lens by operation, which is often success- ful. Of course, in the absence of the lens, the light cannot be focussed accurately upon the retina, and people who have undergone this operation have no distinct vision until a convex lens of glass is placed in front of the eye. As no artificial lens can imitate the power of the crystalline to accommodate its focus to different distances, two glasses are required, one for distance and one for reading. CATARRH, OR COLD IN THE HEAD, TREATMENT OF The chief symptoms of this dis- order are to be found in watering of the eyes, which feel hot and in- flamed ; a general feverishness, especially in the head, stoppage of, and running from the nose, accom- panied with sneezing, all these being sometimes followed by a troublesome cough. The most valu- able remedies in cases of catarrh are