On a case of fits resembling those artificially produced in guinea-pigs / by J. Hughlings Jackson.

  • Jackson, John Hughlings, 1834-1911.
Date:
[1886?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a case of fits resembling those artificially produced in guinea-pigs / by J. Hughlings Jackson. 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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    can speak more definitely of them tlian I can. That the fits in the case of the guinea-pigs depend on discharges beginning in some part of the pons Varolii or medulla oblongata, or both these divisions of the nervous system, is clear, if they are producible when the parts higher have been taken away (Brown-Sequard). Convulsions are producible in rabbits by rapidly bleeding them when the higher parts are removed. These are similar to asphyxia fits, and depend, like them, on discharges beginning in the respi- ratory centre. I submit that laryngismus stridulus and spasmodic asthma are owing to discharges beginning in the same centres started by super-venosity. I do not wish to make too much of one case, the only one of the kind I have seen. I particularly draw attention to the fact that the attacks are not opisthotonic, as malingering boys' fits commonly are. In this patient's case pretence is out of the question. The fits date from the tender age of two and a half years; they occur during sleep.* When awake the fit is not producible if the boy knows he is going to be touched. There is in the hemiplegia clear evidence of local disease of some part of the nervous system. The fits have been witnessed by Sir James Paget, Dr. Briscowe, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Savory, Dr. Hughes Bennett, Dr. James Anderson, and Mr. Victor Horsley. A boy, first seen in consultation with Mr. R. W. Dunn, of Surrey Street, on January 19th, 1886. The patient's age was seven on February 2nd of that year. When about three years old, the patient had a convulsion, about which I obtained no information, except that he turned up his eyes. His mother attributed this fit to exposure to cold, by the carelessness of his nurse. After this he was delicate; he walked at the age of two years and three months, and did not talk till between five and six. At the age of two and a half years he had a fit, called by his medical man an ordinary epileptic fit; it is said to have lasted an hour, but there may have been a succession of fits. There was foaming of the mouth and heavy breathing, and he was convulsed. He has since had four attacks of this kind, or, perhaps, we should say of this degree; the last of them was three months ago. Ever since the first ordinary epileptic fit, he has had imperfect use of the left arm and leg (vide infra). * I hare known epileptiform seizures, beginning in one thumb and affecting one arm, and turning the head to the same side, to occur dui-ing sleep.