Researches on the pathology of the brain. Part III. On the organic diseases of the brain / by John Abercrombie.

Date:
[1819]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches on the pathology of the brain. Part III. On the organic diseases of the brain / by John Abercrombie. 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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    i thus we are led had the appetir- tions, hydatids, and several otl)er morbid appearances, which will be more particularly referred to in the sequel. The symp- toms also appear under various forms; and they vary consider- ably in their progress. In some of the cases they are at first very slight, and advance slowly and insidiously for a consider- able time before they assume an alarming appearance. Other cases commence with more violent symptoms, which have gene- rally either an inflammatory or an apoplectic character. In these, the first urgency is relieved by tlie evacuations and other remedies that are employed ; but we soon find reason to believe that the disease is not thus to be removed. The patient per- haps is becoming pale and exhausted under the remedies, while the aflection of the head is but little abated. New symptoms probably begin to appear, such as important affections of the senses, convulsive or paralytic symptoms ; and to perceive that the complaint which at first ance of an acute attack, has passed into organic disease. Or- ganic affections of the brain also frequently supervene upon in- juries ; and in these cases we observe the same variety in the symptoms. I he injury may have been slight, and at the time perhaps excited no alarm ; and it is only after a considerable interval that we find reason to suspect that from that period I some diseased action has been going on in the brain, which at last comes to produce symptoms of a most unequivocal andl alarminf nature ; or the injury may have been seveie, the im-- mediate°urgency of the symptoms may have been subdued by, the appropriate treatment* and organic disease may have been; left, as the result of the morbid condition that had thus beeni excited. In all these cases the disease may go on for a con- siderable time, producing a variety of symptoms to be afterwards mentioned, and may at last be fatal suddenly by convulsion ; more, slowly by coma, of several days continuance ; or still more gra- dually by the patient being, without either coma or convulsion, worn out by protracted suffering. ... In tracing the symptoms of organic disease of the brain, it is necessary to distinguish betwixt those symptoms which are| properly connected with the disease itself, and those which iin-i mediately precede the fatal termination ; and it is necessaiy to^ keep in view the changes which take place in the morbid ap- pearances, in connection with these fatal symptoms. t is chiefly when the patient dies of some other disease, witiiou any change in the disease of the brain, that we find the mo.bid‘ condition of that organ in what may be termed its ‘>8 state. AVhen the disease is itself fatal, it is generally by a i tack of chronic inflammation ; and, in connection with tli