On some forms of paralysis from peripheral neuritis : of gouty, alcoholic, diphtheritic, and other origin / by Thomas Buzzard.

Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some forms of paralysis from peripheral neuritis : of gouty, alcoholic, diphtheritic, and other origin / by Thomas Buzzard. 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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    The plan which I propose to adopt is first to narrate a case which may be taken as a typical example of a localised peripheral neuritis ; then to show, by reference to clinical cases, the pro- bability that neuritis may occur in forms not easily recognisable, owing to the absence of one or more of the characteristic symptoms. The possibility of its frequent occurrence in the gouty diathesis will be considered, and examples furnished. In these circumstances it is in one limb or portion of the body that the manifesta- tion usually takes place, and the idea of a stroke of hemiplegia is readily suggested. Passing from the localised form of paralysis, we shall next consider cases of multiple neuritis—cases in which there is a tendency to rapid and almost universal paralysis. It is in these that the imitation of central nervous disease is apt to be the strongest. We cannot in every case of this disease feel at all certain as to what is the cause of the changes in the peripheral nerves upon which the symptoms depend. But there is in- creasing evidence to show that many are due to some toxic influence introduced from without. Amongst influences of this kind are to be men- tioned alcohol, lead, diphtheria, syphilis, and something which gives rise to the endemic dis- ease of Japan and the shores of Eastern Asia,