Clinical lectures on Neurasthenia.

  • Savill, Thomas Dixon, 1856-1910.
Date:
1899
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on Neurasthenia. 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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    the secondary degeneration which takes place whenever the peripheral part of a nerve fibre is cut off from its central cell of origin. Thirdly, experiments on animals and observation of their symptoms during life, followed by their subsequent dissec- tion after death, has been the means of affording us valuable information, especially on the Continent, where it is not hampered by the restrictions which are placed on vivisec- tion in England. Fourthly, there is what may be called the anatomo- clinical method, which consists of the careful and minute observation of cases of injury or disease of the nervous system during life, and their detailed examination, both macro- and microscopical after death. This method is the only one available in this institution, but I venture to think that, although it is necessarily a slow and laborious process, it is the one which gives the best and truest results. All the other methods must be submitted ultimately to the control and test of this method. In our investigations here we shall always have before us a case of some kind, the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of which is our primary object. However, gentlemen, let it not be forgotten that practical medicine of a rational kind must always be based on anatomy and physiology ; and as we go along I shall hope to draw some profitable lessons from facts derived from the other methods above mentioned. Fifthly, we have the Method of Analogij. There is yet another means of research in diseases of the nervous system, really a modification of the last named, and which has not, as far as I am aware, been included amongst the recognised methods, though it has doubtless been utilised, perhaps unconsciously. It is one which is espe- cially applicable to diseases of a functional order, and under the very circumstances in which we find ourselves, namely, where so large a number of patients is available that illus- trations of almost any kind of disorder can be readily found for purposes of comparison, one with another, from a clinical point of view. The method consists of grouping a large number of cases together which have marked clinical resemblances in their course and symptoms, and including