Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / By John Abercrombie.

  • Abercrombie, John, 1780-1844
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / By John Abercrombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    after being one day feverish, oppressed and restless, fell rather suddenly into a state of perfect coma. She had been in this state about an hour when I saw her; she lay stretched on her back, motionless and completely insensible ; her face flushed and turgid. She was raised into a sitting posture, and, a basin being held under the chin, a stream of cold water was directed against the crown of the head. In a few minutes, or rather seconds, she was completely recovered, and next day was in her usual health. The same remedy I am in the habit of using with the best effect in the convul- sive diseases of children ; and it appears to be much more useful in such cases than the warm bath, the in- discriminate employment of which is often decidedly injurious. In the preceding observations, I shall perhaps be considered as having attached too little importance to mercury in the treatment of this class of diseases, particularly in the treatment of hydrocephalus ; but in doing so, I have stated simply what is the result of an extensive observation. When mercury was first em- ployed as a remedy for hydrocephalus, it was given with a view to promote the absorption of the effused fiuid, which was supposed to constitute the essence of the disease ; it is now given to correct the biliary se- cretion, and the functions of the digestive organs, which, according to certain modern doctrines, hold so prominent a place in almost every class of diseases. In affections of the brain, as in all other diseases, it is highly proper that these secretions should be attended to, but itis not thus that we are to expect to cure hy- drocephalus ; and I confess the result of my own ob- servation is, that when mercury is useful in affections of the brain, it is chiefly as a purgative. Under the treatment which I have now mentioned, I have seen many cases recover which exhibited all the usual symptoms of the most dangerous affections of the brain, and even the most advanced stages of them. The cases which thus terminate favourably form, it must be confessed, but a small proportion of