Text-book of nervous diseases : being a compendium for the use of students and practitioners of medicine / by Charles L. Dana.

  • Dana, Charles L. (Charles Loomis), 1852-1935.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of nervous diseases : being a compendium for the use of students and practitioners of medicine / by Charles L. Dana. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    and the metallic and infectious poisons. Arsenic given medicinally in doses of one-sixth of a grain or more may cause such a neuritis. Multiple neuritis from lead is not often seen in painters, but usually when the poison is taken in larger closes, as in snuff takers. The general course is much like that of the paralytic form, but there is less paralysis, and on the other hand there are more of the burning, tearing pains, a greater degree of anaesthesia, with a very decided muscular anaesthesia causing symptoms of a subacute locomotor ataxia. The paresis, muscular wasting, trophic chauges, such as- shedding of the epidermis and electrical reactions, serve to distin- guish the disease. A double facial paralysis sometimes complicates this type. Endemic and Epidemic Types {Beriberi or Kakke, Igni- pedites, Acrodynia, Malarial Multiple Neuritis).—Beriberi or en- demic multiple neuritis is seen in this country rarely, and only by accident. Beriberi is the Indian name; kakke, meaning the leg disease, is its Japanese name. Ignipedites is a name given by Indian physicians to probably the same disease. Erench physicians gave the name of acrodynia to an epidemic disease which pre- vailed in Erance and the Crimea in the early part of this century. It was probably multiple neuritis. There are various types of this disease, in some of which the neuritic symptoms seem subordinate to those of other organs. The forms described by Scheube and Taylor are: The acute pernicious, the acute or subacute benign, the atrophic or dry, and the dropsical or wet. The symptoms generally resemble those of multiple neuritis, as already described, plus oedema, extensive serous effusions, and gastro-intestinal disorders. The paralysis affects especially the lower extremities, but in beriberi there seems to be an especial ten- dency also to involvement of vasomotor and visceral nerves.* Acute Pernicious Multiple Neuritis.—There is a form of multiple neuritis which comes on suddenly, progresses rapidly, and * Malarial Multiple Neuritis.—Jamaica seems to be the only place in which the malarial poison produces an endemic neuritic paralysis (Strachan), and the causation in these cases is not yet demonstrated. Dr. Strachan's description of the symptoms of what he terms malarial peripheral neuritis shows it to be quite extensive, often involving trunk and cranial nerves, and accompanied by much pain and wasting. Cramps and skin eruptions are often noted, complications that do not occur in the ordinary types. There are sporadic forms of multiple neuritis occasionally seen in this country, but it is yet to be proved that the malarial Plasmodium can alone cause neuritis. It is more likely that it acts only in conjunction with some other toxic condition.