On a prolonged first stage of Tabes dorsalis : amaurosis, lightning pains, recurrent herps; no ataxia; absence of patella tenson reflex / by Thomas Buzzard.

  • Buzzard, Thomas.
Date:
[1878?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a prolonged first stage of Tabes dorsalis : amaurosis, lightning pains, recurrent herps; no ataxia; absence of patella tenson reflex / by Thomas Buzzard. 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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    subsided. The pains generally continued throughout, and ceased about the tima that the scabs were scaling off. On a very rough average he would have such attacks once in four or six weeks. It appeared that between twenty-four and thirty years of. age he used to be affected very frequently indeed with herpes praeputialis, which occupied sometimes the prepuce, at others the base of the penis and scrotum. For fifteen years this patient has suffered every few weeks (with a certain exception) from attacks of pains which he describes as forked lightning. The seizures were closer together and more violent in character from the end of 1872 to the middle of 1874. During this period of about eighteen months he would have a bad recurrence every two or three weeks. I have notes of one such attack which I may transcribe. 1873, Feb. 14.—Pains which were formerly rare come now very frequently, and with tremendous force. The stomach seems, to him, to be the directly exciting cause. The pains always affect now the left leg; formerly the right was alone subject. He shows a point two or three inches above the left knee, which has been an especially frequent seat of pain. Over a space not bigger than a crown-piece it is as though some one was giving him repeated violent digs with a knife. The present bout came on yesterday at 5 p.m., and has never ceased for more than two minutes at a time. He knows from experience (and the event proved that he was right) that this bout will go on for four or five days, gradually getting less and less acute, and with longer intervals, until he ceases to suffer. And he will be pretty sure to have herpes. Sometimes the herpes appears first. He will have a patch of heat and itching on the buttock, and then he gets a '*fine crop of herpes. Sometimes the vesicles are abortive, and do not come to the breaking stage. Then the pain does not come so rapidly. The herpes is always confined to the rigiht gluteal region, and never passes to the left of the spinal column. I can see now some scars of recent attacks .... The part where the pain first begins, always remains as it were the camp or head-quarters of it—pains radiating from it