On scrivener's palsy and its treatment by galvanization of the cervical sympathetic nerve / by Julius Althaus.

  • Julius Althaus
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On scrivener's palsy and its treatment by galvanization of the cervical sympathetic nerve / by Julius Althaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    * The pathology of this peculiar and most troublesome affec¬ tion is still enveloped in a considerable degree of uncertainty, although numerous theories have been put forward concerning it. Some observers believe it to be due to a simple spasm of the motor nerves of the hand, arising from over-exertion, while others consider it a reflex neurosis, originating, not from the nerves of the skin, but from the sentient nerves of the muscles used in writing. Others again look upon it as a symptom of softening of the brain, or of granular disin¬ tegration of the vesicular neurine of the upper portion of the spinal cord. Post-mortem examinations of uncomplicated cases of scri¬ vener’s palsy are as yet wanting, which is easily accounted for by the affection having no tendency to shorten life. In some cases where the nervous system has, after death, been examined witli the scalpel and microscope, considerable degenerative changes have been discovered in the thalamus opticus and corpus striatum ; but then there had been during life a whole train of symptoms foreign to true scrivener’s palsy, and plainly referable to the anatomical changes just mentioned. Indeed, some patients suffering from scrivener’s palsy ultimately die of hemiplegia, or other nervous affec¬ tions ; but quite as many of them succumb to kidney or liver disease, or to acute inflammatory disorders and other com¬ plaints, none of which bear any peculiar relationship to the affection which we are now considering.