On the successful treatment of epilepsy by the administration of hydrate of chloral with bromide of potassium : being a paper read ... 1880.

  • Duncan, Eben.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the successful treatment of epilepsy by the administration of hydrate of chloral with bromide of potassium : being a paper read ... 1880. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    during the six months 60 drachms of Chloral and 40 oimces of Bromide of Potassium, and from the time of my visit up to the present time, for three years, he has not had a single attack of epilepsy. In the month of August he informed me that he had suffered all his life from plymosis, but he did not think that it caused him any inconvenience further than in preventing him from emptying his bladder as speedily as other people. He had not been troubled with nocturnal emissions and had not been addicted to masturbation. I circumcised him. In the month of October, six months after I first made his acquaintance in the manner above-narrated, he left Glasgow to make a pleasure voyage round the world, which lasted 18 months. When he returned he called upon me, and informed me that he had not had any return, of his epilepsy—that he had quite recovered his memory—that, whereas before he left home, if he went for a day’s pleasure trip, he could not tell in a few days after what had occurred during the trip, and had lost recollection of the scenery he had passed through, he can now ^remember all that has happened in a year’s journey. The past which was becoming a blank to him is now filling up again, and things are now coming back vividly to his recollection which he had quite forgotten during the later years of his epilepsy. On enquiry as to the previous treatment which had been adopted by his former medical advisers, he told me that he had taken Bromide of Pot- assium for years without any beneficial effect, and that for some months before I was called to see him he had been taking a preparation of Arsenic. CASE II. On the 27th of October, 1878, I was called to attend a young unmarried lady, aged 25. From her mother I got the following history of her illness :— She was born in Jamaica, and lived there for several years. When one year old she had an attack of brain fever. This illness lasted for three days, and during its course she had several fits. At two years of age she had a return of the brain fever. On this occasion it lasted eight days, and was, as before, accompanied by convulsive seizures. Patient’s mother informs me that this brain