Essays chiefly on the theory of paroxysmal diseases of the nervous system / by Marshall Hall.

  • Hall, Marshall, 1790-1857.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays chiefly on the theory of paroxysmal diseases of the nervous system / by Marshall Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    man brought after execution to Sauvages, was recovered by- three bleedings, and sat up and talked, his breathing and deglutition being natural. After a short time the part of his neck where the cord had been applied began to swell, so as evidently to impede the circulation in the veins of the neck ; he then became drowsy, his pulse and respiration slow, with- out dyspnoea, and in a few hours he died apoplectic. A woman mentioned by Wepfer, recovered after execution under the same treatment. After her recovery, she was for some time affected with vertigo, which subsided gradually. To cases such as these we may add the numerous examples in which persons fall down suddenly in a state of perfect apoplexy, and very speedily recover under the appropriate treatment without retaining any trace of so formidable a malady. “ The apoplectic attach, as it occurs in such examples as these, must be supposed to depend upon a cause which acts simply upon the circulating system of the brain, producing there a derangement which tahes place speedily, and is often almost as speedily removed. What the precise nature of that de- rangement may be, is a point of the utmost difficulty to determine, and, perhaps, ice have no data upon ivhich it can be determined by legitimate induction. The subject leads to speculations of a very interesting hind ; but it must be confessed that they are in themselves in a great measure hypothetical, and that their ap- plication to the phenomena of apoplexy is also conjectural in a very great degree. They may be worthy of some attention, but must be kept entirely distinct from our present course of inquiry, in prosecuting which I shall now take a general view of the principal varieties of symptoms which occur in the attack of apoplexy. “ The apoplectic attack is generally preceded by symptoms indicating some derangement of the circulation in the brain. The most remarkable of these are the following :—headache, giddiness, sense of weight and fulness in the head, violent pulsation of the arteries, and confused noises in the ears. Ihese symptoms are often accompanied by epistaxis, which may give a partial and temporary relief; by loss of recollection, and incoherent talking, resembling slight intoxication; by affections of the sight, double vision, and temporary blindness; by drowsiness, and lethargic tendency. We also frequently