Outlines of physiology and pathology / by William Pulteney Alison.

  • Alison, William Pulteney, 1790-1859.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of physiology and pathology / by William Pulteney Alison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    exceeding those of typhoid fever. The effect of this poison to produce this form of disease is manifestly determined by previous predisposition, the eifect being seen only in a very small proportion of those to whom the cause is applied. And the specific action of the poison on the brain and nerves appears manifestly to be aggravated and maintained, sometimes by a morbidly diminished, and at other times by an increased, action of vessels,—as indicated both by the symptoms accompanying the mental derangement, and also by the juvantia and Isedentia;—the specific effect of opium, in controlling the characteristic symptoms of the disease being sometimes certainly aided by antiphlogistic^ and at other times by stimulant remedies. The peculiar agency of a cause affecting the nervous sys- tem in this disease after the manner of a poison, is shewn by the mode of fatal termination of the disease, which is hardly ever preceded by coma, but takes place almost in- stantaneously, or in the way of syncope. In almost all other cases of Mania, the immediate dan- ger of death, in so far as it is connected with- the mental disease, may be said to depend on the gradual accession of coma; and the fatal result is accordingly very generally preceded by a combination of other of the cerebral diseases. Epilepsy, *Phrenitis or Hydrocephalus, &c. and very often Fatuity;—which combinations may probably be owing some- times to extension of organic disease in the brain, and some- times to accession of more acute disease there. The remarkably partial affection of the mental powers, in many cases of Mania and Melancholia, and the limita- tion of the morbid condition of the mind, in many cases, to its exercise on particular objects of thought, may be thought to favour the supposition of the a])propriation of individual parts of the brain, either to particular acts of mind, or to acts of the mind on particular subjects; but it does not appear on examination of this subject, either that the allo- cation of the different operations of the mind, in the dif- ferent parts of the brain, proposed by Gall and Spurz- HEiM and their followers, is confirmed by observation of the T t