On insanity and nervous disorders peculiar to women, in some of their medical and medico-legal aspects / by Thomas More Madden.

Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On insanity and nervous disorders peculiar to women, in some of their medical and medico-legal aspects / by Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    who, on the afternoon of the 31st of December, went into her room to make some change of dress. Shortly afterwards she was found lying in a profound sleep, from which she could not be aroused. This continued until I first saw her twenty-four hours later. She was then still sleeping; the decubitus dorsal; respiration scarcely perceptible; pulse 70 and very feeble; face pallid, lips colourless, and extremities icy cold—in short, so death-like was her aspect that a casual observer might have doubted the possibility of the vital spark lingering in that apparently inanimate frame, on wliich no external stimulus seemed to produce any impression, with the exception that the pupils responded to light. Sinapisms were applied over the heart and to the legs, where they were left until vesication was occasioned, but without causing any evidence of pain. Faradisation was also resorted to without any effect. The bowels were cleared out by a foetid injection, and subsequently nutritive enemata, with ammoniated tincture of valerian, were ordered every third hour. On the following day her condition was unchanged; and on the 3rd of January the only alteration observable was a still greater prostration of strength, so that her pulse was then imperceptible at the wrist, and it was found neces- sary to keep her alive by the repeated subcutaneous injection of sulphuric ether. At my request Dr. Banks now saw her in con- sultation, and agreed with me in regarding the case as one of hysterical lethargy. It would be useless here to follow the details of this case further than add that for the next six days she continued to sleep on, with the exception of some intervals of semi-consciousness, like a person between sleeping and waking, until the 9th, when she suddenly awoke, called for her clothes, which had been removed from their usual place, and wanted to come down to breakfast, as if nothing unusual had occurred. For the next week she remained, however, somewhat debilitated and lethargic, still sleeping for a great part of the day, but this gradually passed off, and she recovered perfectly.