Lectures illustrative of certain local nervous affections / by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie.

  • Brodie, Benjamin, Sir, 1783-1862.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures illustrative of certain local nervous affections / by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    lenitive electuary at bed-time. After having per- severed in this plan for the space of six weeks, she called on me again. The piles had now ceased to bleed, and in other respects gave her scarcely any inconvenience. The pain in the foot had entirely left her. She observed that, in pro- portion as the symptoms produced by the piles had abated, the pain in the foot had abated also. Now in such cases as these, you will at once perceive that there is no direct communication between the nerves of the parts affected that will afford a reasonable explanation of the occur- rence of the sympathetic pain ; and you will naturally inquire, how then is the sympathetic pain produced? To this question I would answer, that in all probability it is in the brain itself that the communication is made, the im- pression being first transmitted to the sensorium, and from thence reflected to the nerves of the part which is secondarily affected. If you dis- sect the brain according to Reil's method, having first hardened it by maceration in alcohol, you will find it splitting into fibres, passing in various directions, many of which may be demonstrated as connecting even the most distant convolutions of the cerebrum with each other: and if, with the limited knowledge which we at present pos- sess, we venture to speculate on this obscure but interesting subject, we may easily be led to sup- pose that an impression on one part of the body should, by means of these communicating fibres,