Epilepsy : its symptoms, treatment, and relation to other chronic convulsive diseases / by J. Russell Reynolds.

  • Reynolds J. Russell (John Russell), Sir, 1828-1896.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epilepsy : its symptoms, treatment, and relation to other chronic convulsive diseases / by J. Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    for Gift' knowledge is not in a position to allow of our assigning, with positive certainty, to the different objects that we see, the value of all the manifold materials, properties, and actions whicli they have in common. But in this condition of our minds, and of their scientific in- formation, no method is so useful as the numerical. It enables us to bring together those objects which present the largest number of features in common ; to approximate the most nearly to a true valuation of particular characters,—those having the highest value which persist through the longest series of diver- gent elements ;—to compare group with group ; and to advance, by its means, to the separation from each other of those which agree in some few—^they may be striking but inessential— qualities; and to detect the inner, most important, and most numerous relations among those which, in outer and conspicuoiis details, differ widely. In the investigation of disease this method is of especial service. Minute observation, and its numerical analysis, compel us to rearrange some of our nomenclature, and in the case before us to remove from the group denominated epilepsy at least three forms of disease which have constantly passed under its name. Having accomplished this, we have a residue of cases pre- senting closer affinities than those which existed among the heterogeneous elements previously strung together; and the further examination of this group affords us some nearer approxi- mation towards a knowledge of its natural history. The value of a numerical result, in regard of pathology and therapeutics, is in proportion to the mutual proximity of the cases examined, and not simply to the niunber from which such result is derived. If our object is to know the natm*al history of convulsive diseases as a whole, we must of necessity embrace a vast nimiber of cases ; and some information gathered from such broad basis woidd possess great interest and utiHtj'; but, inasmuch as these diseases differ widely fi'om one another, in their structiiral conditions, theii* phenomena beyond the convulsions, their influence upon social qualifications, upon