Internal hydrocephalus in the adult, with remarks on the aetiology of hydrocephalus and its occasional association with other abnormal conditions of the central nervous system / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Weber, Frederick Parkes, 1863-1962.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Internal hydrocephalus in the adult, with remarks on the aetiology of hydrocephalus and its occasional association with other abnormal conditions of the central nervous system / by F. Parkes Weber. 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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    ever, there can be no doubt of the presence of true inflam- matory changes in parts of the ependyma and sub-ependymal tissues. Moreover, the changes exactly resemble those figured by Burr and McCarthy as having been found in their case (to which I shall later on return), and as having been produced experimentally by the injection of irritating sub- stances into the cerebral ventricles of cats. The foregoing case is, in the main, similar to a case which I had the opportunity of seeing in Sir Dyce Duck- worth’s wards when acting as one of his medical clerks in 1887, and which he has kindly allowed me to refer to. The patient, a woman (A. S.) aged 57, suffered a considerable time, chiefly from severe headache, and had double optic neuritis. The necropsy ultimately showed the presence of simple internal hydrocephalus. An apparently much more acute case than either of these was the following:—The patient, R. D., aged 21, a tailoress, born in Russia, was admitted on my side at the German Hospital in June, 1898. Eight days before admission she began to suffer from headache and attacks of vomiting. The headache was at first frontal and then occipital. She gradually became weaker, and just before admission had retention of urine. The general practitioner who had her sent to the hospital suspected a cerebral abscess. On admission, the pupils were found not to react to light and to be very small (pressure on the medulla?1) There was cervical rigidity. Temperature 98‘8'F.; pulse 84, slightly irregular. Knee jerks natural. Urine, specific gravity 1020, no albumen or sugar. The patient died shortly after admission. At the necropsy the ventricles of the brain were found distended with clear fluid and the convolu- tions were flattened. There was slight thickening of the pia-arachnoid at the base of the brain, but nothing dis- tinctly abnormal could be found. The lining of the lateral ventricles appeared slightly granular, but a microscopic examination showed nothing noteworthy. No disease was found in the heart, lungs, &c. 1 Generally in adults with chronic hydrocephalus the tendency has been for the pupils to be dilated.