A physician's notes on ophthalmology. 2nd series / by J. Hughlings Jackson.

  • Jackson, John Hughlings, 1834-1911.
Date:
[1875]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A physician's notes on ophthalmology. 2nd series / by J. Hughlings Jackson. 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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    separation of motor and sensory regions is abrupt. The case which follows is mixed sensory and motory. Discharging lesions may np doubt be developed in any part of the cortex cerebri from front to back. “ Whether the word epilepsy be used in the commonly accepted sense or in the novel sense, the case here reported shows the relationship of certain symptoms of migraine to epilepsy. The hemiopia is especially interesting. “ Colour development is not an uncommon precursory symptom in cases of epileptiform or epileptic seizures. It is common in migraine. In this girl’s case, if her memory serves her, the colours began on the side which does not correspond to the side convulsed ; one reason for thinking her account errone- ous is that the transitory hemiopia was left-sided (field), as was the convulsion at its onset. “ M. B., ret. 16, consulted Dr. Hughlings Jackson in August, 1873, having had fits for six years. She walked at the age of 16 months, and talked very early. It is said that she had spas- modic croup at the age of 1.0 months. She was subject to attacks every winter until the age of 13. An attack would come on about ten o’clock at night, and last for two hours, when vomiting and relief came. What the real nature of this illness may have been is matter of doubt; the mother said the girl made a noise like croup, and imitated the noise of laryngismus stridulus very closely. At the age of three years it seems clear that she had a bad attack of jaundice; she was, her mother averred, delirious and insensible for two or three weeks. She had never had scarlet fever nor rheumatic fever; she had had measles, chicken-pox, and whooping-cough. No facts bearing on hereditary tendency to any kind of nervous affection were obtained. “ She seemed to be in good health. She had begun to men- struate at the age of twelve and a half years, and for the last twelve months the catamenia had been regular. There was no heart disease; there was no ear affection, nor had there been any. She had thread-worms. “ It is interesting to note that there was a clear account of gradual development of her seizures. She had at first attacks of coloured vision only for some months before anything further. There is circumstantial evidence of this. Her mother thought the child was bilious, and waited until her holidays began to give her physic. Further evidence that these mere attacks of coloured vision were really rudimentary or incipient fits was that later on she occasionally had these attacks, sometimes followed by con- vulsions, sometimes not. As she says, ‘ if the colours do not leave, the fit comes on.’ After having several attacks of coloured vision only, she would have a severe fit. The colour began sud- denly. There were red and green. The red comes first and the c