Cases of tetany, hysterical contraction, and reflex contraction, illustrating varieties of chronic functional spasm / by Henry Hun.

  • Hun, Henry, 1854-1924.
Date:
[1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cases of tetany, hysterical contraction, and reflex contraction, illustrating varieties of chronic functional spasm / by Henry Hun. 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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    Remarks.—Notwithstanding the fact that in the medical literature to which I have access I have not found any description of a case of tetany in which the muscular spasm continued persistently for weeks and months, yet this case, it seems to me, must be regarded as a case of tetany. In the early part of its course it presented the intermittent form of sym- metrically distributed spasm so typical of tetany, and, although later, the muscular contractions be- came continuous, and during the nine months that the patient was under observation, in the hospital, all her muscles, except those of the face, were so strongly contracted that the contour of every super- ficial muscle stood out as plainly as in an anatomical dissection, yet even while the muscles were thus continuously contracted, spasms of even more severe and painful muscular contractions occurred at long intervals, and could be at any time induced in the arms by pressure on the nerves and vessels together, but not by pressure on the ulnar nerve alone, and the facial nerve did not show that increased excita- bility to mechanical irritation which it usually shows in cases of tetany. The feeling of heat from which the patient con- stantly suffered, and on account of which she always wished to be in a very cold room, might well be the result of the widespread, strong and constant muscular contraction; and yet, in spite of this constant, excessive muscular contraction, the patient still retained voluntary power over her muscles, and was able to execute a great variety of movements, albeit slowly and with difficulty. This fact, that the