Hereditary herpes zoster / by G. A. Gibson.

Date:
[1885?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hereditary herpes zoster / by G. A. Gibson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    (Reprinted from the Birmingham Medical Review, Oct., 1885.) HEREDITARY HERPES ZOSTER. BY G. A. GIBSON, M.D., LECTURER ON MATERIA MEDICA AND THERAPEUTICS AT SURGEON'S HALL, EDINBURGH In view of the great interest which is at present taken in any facts bearing on the subject of heredity, it seems but right to record an observation which I recently had the opportunity of making, and which probably involves the hereditary transmissions of a special predisposition to localised changes in the nervous system. A gentleman, now aged 35, was attacked during the winter months of 1882 and [1883 by herpes zoster, pre- ceded by severe neuralgic pain, and strictly limited to a small area on the back of the fore-arm supplied by one of the minute dorsal branches of the left ulnar nerve. Last winter this gentleman’s eldest child, a little girl five years of age, was seen by me when suffering from the same affection. It was confined exactly to the same area of the left arm, and, therefore, followed the distribution of the same branch of the left ulnar nerve as in the case of her father. While herpes simplex seems to have no distinct con- nection with any special nervous influence, herpes zoster is proved, not only by its various nervous phenomena, but by post mortem demonstration to be dependent on changes in the nervous system. The pathological processes have