Functional nervous diseases of reflex origin / by Albert Rufus Baker.

  • Baker, Albert Rufus, 1858-
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Functional nervous diseases of reflex origin / by Albert Rufus Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    chastest maiden might envy the comely appear- ance of the genitalia of the most prolific matron. It may be true that these patients are relieved of side and back aches ; it may be that their con- stipated bowels or irritable bladders perform their function better; yet these patients still suffer about the usual amount of pain and discomfort in the course of the year although it may be transferred to the head or eyes. I am not prepared to state just what this neu- rotic habit is, but we are all familiar with its manifestations. With one it will be manifested by recurring attacks of sick headache ; in another by a paroxysm of asthma or hay fever; in the female by painful menstruation or hysteria, and in others it may manifest itself as neuralgia, chorea or epilepsy. We specialists may lop off a branch here and there, and we may be of^ real value to our patient in relieving him of some troublesome or painful symptom, but there is something more necessary—the patient needs treatment more than this or that annoying symp- tom. lyCt us then not ignore the general prac- titioner in his more responsible duty of correct- ing the general condition, which after all is the real cause of these nervous diseases of reflex origin. . Dr. Schwinitz did not wish to discuss grad- uated tenotomies and their effect on so-called re- flex neuroses. He wished to point out that the mere correction of a local irritation was by no means sufi&cient to obviate the nervous explosion supposed to be caused by the defect, because the lack of the control of the higher centres over the lower reflex mechanism, which is really at the bottom of the trouble, is not thus restored. The inference was plain that this must be treated by general measures.