On some disorders of nutrition related with affections of the nervous system : neurotic dystrophies / by William M. Ord.

  • Ord, William M. (William Miller), 1834-1902.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some disorders of nutrition related with affections of the nervous system : neurotic dystrophies / by William M. Ord. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the central nervous system has been recognised by general consent. Dr. Dickinson has collected a large number of illustrations of this connection, in his work on Diseases of the Kidneys. In the cases which I have analysed, one-third of the whole number told a story of excessive or prolonged mental work or anxiety preceding the recognition of glycosuria. In one, after much emotional excitement, insanity was at last fully declared. In one, after a long course of strenuous mental labour, scarcely intermitted during the nights of many years, hemiplegia occurred, and apoplexy ended the chapter. The last two of these cases lead on to another group, in which glycosuria appeared as a symptom of actual disease of the nervous system. In two cases, there was marked tabes dorsalis, and in a third, locomotor ataxy was present, with additional signs indicating affection of the whole breadth of the spinal cord, Decided hypochondriasis was noted in two cases. One of the patients was haunted by the dread of syphilitic disease, but manifested no signs thereof whatever. In a third group, marked signs of nervous disorder accompanied the glycosuria, to wit, tinnitus, vertigo, sleeplessness in an extreme degree, constant headache, loss of power of thought and memory, numbness in limbs, sciatica, shingles, prurigo, and marked loss of muscular energy. In three cases, the patients were the subjects of a very typical form of angina pectoris. I may add that I have since seen another illustration of this coexistence. To sum up, there was scarcely a case in which glycosuria was not associated either with evident disease of the central nervous system, or with symptoms indicating great perturbation of the centres of the nerves. A second stage of observation brings out a new set of relations. In more than a third of the cases, true gout was distinctly present. In a much C 2 4