On the efficacy of the bromide of potassium in epilepsy and certain psychical affections / by S.W. Duckworth Williams.
- Williams, Samuel White Duckworth.
- Date:
- [1865]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the efficacy of the bromide of potassium in epilepsy and certain psychical affections / by S.W. Duckworth Williams. 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.
8/36 page 8
![very unpromising nature of most of the cases under treatment, for althougli many were young and had not been affected long by the disease, and none manifested sj'mptoms of any distinct cerebral lesion, all were more or less the subjects of occasional maniacal paroxysms. Some were old, and had been in the Asylum for years, some were imbecile, some during their interparoxysraal periods were perfectly rational and, saving the abnormal irritability to which all epileptics are subject, apparently sound in intellect and body, and others were both feeble in mind and body. Besides this class, however, I have administered the drug to all cases that have come under my notice in any way marked by exalted action of the function of the reflex nervous system, or by undue excitability of the generative organs, or by ex- aggerated impressibility, or increased motor excitability of the chief reflex ccntie. So that, in all, the cases under treatment have numbered upwards of 80. In many I have seen much good accrue, in some no benefit result, and in a few there was palpable and positive harm. \_See Table /.] Reading some remarks in a late number of the Lancet on the action of Bromide of Potassium, and having tried the drug extensively for the last five months, it has occurred to me that a few observations on its action may not be unaccept- able to the readers of the Medical Times and Gazette. Through the kindness of Dr. Wing, the Superintendent of the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, I have been enabled freely to try it in as many as thirty-seven cases. These were all epileptics, and I append a table showing in one column the number of fits registered during the last five months of last year, when they were taking no medicine, and in the other the number registered during the first five months of this J ear, when each case was taking on an average ten grains of the salt twice dailj^.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22286822_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
