Cases of nerve-disorder : recorded with reference to the probable operation of malaria as a cause / by C. Handfield Jones.

  • Jones, C. Handfield (Charles Handfield), 1819-1890
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases of nerve-disorder : recorded with reference to the probable operation of malaria as a cause / by C. Handfield Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/44 (page 6)
    Remarks. If the interest of a case is thought to de¬ pend only on the danger and severity of its symptoms, X concede that the above is not worth much notice; but I submit that small and apparently trivial phenomena may, if we view them aright, serve to us as pictures—aye, and faithful ones too—of events which occur elsewhere on a far larger scale, and are attended with far more serious and striking results. Thus, in this case, we have exposure of a family to an endemic influence, as the result of which two suffer from fever, one from dysentery, and a fourth from diarrhoea ending in periodic neuralgia. May we not see here distinctly marked a local malaria, with several of its varieties of morbid effects ? In tropical climates, the cause is well known, and the various forms of disease to which it gives rise; but in England I fear we are too apt to regard disorders as separate entities, and to think too little of the affinities between them, the way in which they may re¬ place each other, and the frequency of their origin from a common cause. The rapid improvement after removal from London (where similar malarious disorder was prevalent) to a healthier locality was very apparent, and is in exact accordance with the observation of Dr. Macculloch, who says “ that to such change of place or air we must trust as the leading remedy”, succeeding often u after everything else has failed”. The large* size of the evacuations I am inclined to connect with want of bile-secreting action in the liver, in consequence of which the natural amount of absorption did not take place. Case hi. Jan. 19th, 1856. A girl, aged 10 years, spare and delicate, has been ill some weeks with sharp pains oc¬ curring at night, latterly every night. She suffers less from them when she lies still. Each attack of pain gene¬ rally lasts five minutes. The other night the pain was very severe; she could not lie still a moment. The pain is at the lower part of chest and the upper part of ab¬ domen, and is attended with a sense of heat. In the day she is generally pretty well, but yesterday was feverish and sleepy in the afternoon. The bowels are well open;