On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. 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.

    129/228 (page 115)
    MUSCULAR CONTRACTION. to admission into the hospital, this lethargy of manner had perceptibly increased. At this time, her general health was tolerably good. Her pulse was 110,—the pupils of her eyes rather contracted,—and the expres- sion of her countenance natural. She answered ques- tions with sufficient intelligence, but with extreme slowness of articulation, and in a tone scarcely raised above a whisper. In walking, she moved her feet m regular alternation and directly forward, at a pace which, measured by the watch, did not exceed four steps in the minute. There was more difficulty in the extension than in the flexion of the limbs. Subse- quently, a tremulous nodding of the head, with occasional twitchings of the muscles of the chest and arms, gave to the case a character of incipient chorea; but when the child left the hospital in June 1836, after varied and active treatment, there was very little improvement of the symptoms. Another instance shortly afterwards occurred to me of deficient muscular energy, with exceeding slow- ness of articulation, in a young man about thirty years of age. From the early history of both these cases, I was induced to consider the muscular symptoms as dependent upon pressure, by thickening or effusion, in the central structures of the brain. There is a general analogy of character, in this tardigrade low- toned affection, with the impaired contractility of chronic hydrocephalus.