The tongue as an indication in disease : being the Lumleian Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in March 1888 / by W. Howship Dickinson.

  • Dickinson, W. Howship (William Howship), 1832-1913.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The tongue as an indication in disease : being the Lumleian Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in March 1888 / by W. Howship Dickinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    On the Influence of the Nervous System upon the Tongue. This is not to be ignored, though I think more has been attributed to it than can be demonstrated. The late Mr Hdton showed that .coating of the tongue was- often con- fined to the side of painful teeth, and referred this to reflex nervous irritation. I have already adverted to such cases in the view that the effect was due to want of wear on the tender side. It is a matter of common observation that in hemiplegia the tongue is not unilaterally affected as if from the local change, but bilaterally as if from the constitutional results of it. On the other hand, I have already cited an instance in which there was reason to believe that unilateral coating and dryness of the tongue depended on an injury to the chorda tympani on the affected side. Here we have the intervention of saliva, and may with probability ascribe the coating to the want of this secretion rather than to the direct effect of the nervous lesion. It has already been shown how largely deficiency of saliva affects the tongue, and it is a matter of ancient as well as modern experience that this secretion is much under the influence of the • nervous system. I do not now refer to physiological ex- periments, but to conditions of wider range. The mind affects the saliva, and may, or even must, by its means, or by means of its absence, affect the tongue. The dryness of agitation is well known; the tongue < cleaves to the roof of the mouth.' The Eastern ordeal by rice, which can be swallowed by the innocent, not by the guilty, will occur to everyone. I have often noticed the tongue to be white and sodden-looking after an exacerbation of nervousness, asso- ciated in particular with phosphatic urine, and thought the first change to be a want of saliva, the coating secondary. I