On the causes, nature, and treatment of palsy and apoplexy : of the forms, seats, complications and morbid relations of paralytic and apoplectic diseases / by James Copland.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the causes, nature, and treatment of palsy and apoplexy : of the forms, seats, complications and morbid relations of paralytic and apoplectic diseases / by James Copland. 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.

    71/442 (page 49)
    have never seen an instance of hemiplegia with spasm of the paralysed side, to which the term of hysterical imposed by some nosologists, was strictly applicable. Hysteria very rarely occasions true or complete hemi- plegia, but I have met with several cases ot paraplegia caused by hysteria. 90. Intermittent hemiplegia has been noticed by Sauvages, Morgagni, Cullen, Elliotson, and Todd ; but examples of it have been rarely and imperfectly observed. It would seem, that the congestion of, or vascular determination to, the brain, during the febrile paroxysm, occasioned a condition of one of the hemi- spheres, or of a portion of it, so as to interrupt the action of volition ; but that the change was only tem- porary, and depended upon the state of circulation at- tending the febrile paroxysm—that it consisted neither of softening nor of haemorrhage. A very slight or in- complete form of hemiplegia in rare cases follows epileptic seizures, and disappears in a few days, and recurs with the next seizure of epilepsy, being thus intermittent; but the paralytic affection consequent upon epilepsy is frequently either more partial or slight, or more severe and permanent than this. (See the Complications of Palsy.) 91. Much variety in the symptoms are observed in the course of hemiplegia, depending upon circumstances that will be alluded to hereafter, and upon a partial or more complete return of sensibility when this has been also lost, and upon a slight recovery of some of the motions of the limbs, particularly of the lower limbs; but generally when the patient is able to walk a little, or with the aid of a stick, the lower extremity is usually thrown forward by the inclination of the trunk to the sound side. The foot is pointed outwards when the D