A letter to Sir Benjamin C. Brodie ... containing a critical inquiry into his "Lectures illustrative of certain local nervous affections" / by William Goodlad.

Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Sir Benjamin C. Brodie ... containing a critical inquiry into his "Lectures illustrative of certain local nervous affections" / by William Goodlad. 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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    Sydenham, indeed, says that the apoplexy of hysteric women proceeds from a different cause; but he rather hazards an opinion than^estabhshes a fact, when he assigns, and it is the only reason which he gives in support of it, that it seizes them frequently after a difficult delivery attended with great loss of blood. The apoplexy of aged and corpulent persons, frequently occurs also after loss of blood, and as often, perhaps, from some violent commotion of the mind. But whether this be so or not, it will be observed that, in his opinion, the effect is precisely similar, whether arising from hysteria, or from other causes. Sydenham maintains that there are two indica- tions of hysteria: the passing of green matter from the stomach and bowels, and a large se- cretion of limpid urine. You pass over both these symptoms without notice, except in one in- stance, which is contradictory to the authority of Sydenham. In aggravated cases of hysteria, it is not uncommon to find the urine depositing a large quantity of lithic acid in the form of sand, or the urine may be voided high coloured, de- positing a pink amorphous sediment ;* and this discrepancy becomes the more striking, when we find on the one hand the urine considered a cause of hysteria,! in the other an effect only. I have already remarked that Sydenham classes many disorders under the term hysteria, which