A new point in the diagnosis of Graves' disease / by R. Norris Wolfenden.

  • Wolfenden, Richard Norris.
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new point in the diagnosis of Graves' disease / by R. Norris Wolfenden. 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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    under those very conditions. This statement, while true in a general way, understates the importance of the point. Not- withstanding the great discrepancies occurring in the general statements made by various writers, I believe it is possible by observing a strictly constant method of experimentation, and by conducting such observations always under the same conditions, to obtain results which may have a very important diagnostic significance. It is not fair to include a number of observations of persons in various ~ conditions of ill-health obtained under different methods of experimentation, and then to say that the electrical resistance of the body varies between so and so. There is a fairly constant degree of electrical resistance for persons in health, and in individuals afilicted with nervous dis- orders there are wide variations from this standard. While my experiments have been designed to determine the point as regards Graves' disease, I have enlarged them to embrace a number of nervous conditions, with the object of comparing the results, and they serve to emphasise the point that in Graves' disease the body resistance is lowered in a most remarkable manner. It was Charcot who first drew attention to the point, and his remarks made in a clinical lecture ^ were as follows : The diminution of electrical resistance, inasmuch as it is a symptom at once objective and measurable, is particularly interesting, and may be of great importance in elucidating doubtful cases. If the electrodes of a battery of ten elements are applied, one to the sternum and the other to the back of a healthy subject, a deflection of say thirty degrees of the galvano- meter needle occurs, but when the experiment is repeated under the same conditions upon a patient with Basedow's disease, a much greater deflection is found, perhaps up to 90 or 100 degrees. In every case of this disease examined hy M. Vigouroux, this con- dition has been present, s^nd he has also found it in certam cardiac affections, notably asystolism. As to the method of experimentation. A constant cell battery, resistance coil (of 1000 ohms), and galvanometer graduated in milliamperes, and a pair of electrodes are all the apparatus required. The standard electrodes recommended by De WattevHle should be used, so as to estabhsh uniformity m 1 Gazeiie des HdpUaii^, 13 and 15, 1886.