A clinical lecture on remissions and relapses in insular sclerosis / by Thomas Buzzard.

  • Buzzard, Thomas, 1831-1919.
Date:
[1904]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: A clinical lecture on remissions and relapses in insular sclerosis / by Thomas Buzzard. 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.

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    of the tendency to remissions and relapses in insular sclerosis. Let me refer, though very briefly, to a few more of these, • because in a subject of this kind a description of incidents occurring in concrete examples is more striking than any abstract statements. Case 1.—A woman, aged 33 years, whom I saw about a month ago, had an attack of influenza in 1895. Shortly after- wards she squinted and lost the use of her right hand and arm—i.e., although able to move it she could not use it for lifting things or dressing. She also lost feeling in it. At that time she dragged one of her feet, although she was not conscious of loss of power in it. The trouble in her limbs described lasted for about a month and then improved, although she did not quite regain the power. She had been very much improved for about a month when she relapsed and this time both right arm and leg were affected. For three weeks she was very helpless and stayed in bed for the most part. She then began to improve and perfectly recovered in the course of some months. From that time (between seven and eight years ago) she remained perfectly well until June, 1902, when, as she describes it, the right arm began to be weak and the weakness spread to the right hand. Just as happened before, she again became practically helpless in this limb and the leg was also affected to a certain extent. She went to the seaside and after a month had quite recovered. She remained well for a month and then felt her leg losing power again, and although keeping about she had great difficulty in walking. The right arm, too, was slightly weaker but she was able to use it. On the first attack eight years ago there was some difficulty in restrain- ing the action of the bladder and this difficulty recurred in the last attack. There is now some weakness of the right limbs with attempted ankle clonus. On the occasion of my examination I failed to elicit any plantar reflex. Case 2.—A woman, now (1904) aged 48 years, lost the sight of her right eye in less than a week when 23 years old. At its worst she could not perceive light. It gradually recovered completely. A few years later she had transitory tingling in the right arm and weakness in one ankle which passed off. About 1894 there were loss of power to hold a pencil and dragging of the right leg, from which she also recovered. I saw her in 1898 when the right leg was very