Observations on epilepsy, its pathology, and treatment / by William M. Cornell.

  • Cornell, William Mason, 1802-1895.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on epilepsy, its pathology, and treatment / by William M. Cornell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    As to the mesoccphale of Dr. Todd, upon the disturbance of which, he says, the convulsions depend, we think he would have been better sustained if he had said the whole of epilepsy depended upon these portions of the brain, or upon these in connection with those parts of the nervous system which lie excluded from being concerned in it. We believe they depend much more upon the quadrigemina, the medulla oblongata and spinal cord, than upon either the cerebellum or cere- brum ; and that this localizing of the convulsions will much better account for all the epileptic phenomena—both the coma, sympathetically affecting the cerebrum, and the convulsions, by irritating the medulla ob- longata and spinal cord. As it respects the motor apparatus, we are sustained in this opinion by the experiments of M. Flourens and M. Hertwig. They show that that part of the motor apparatus which causes convulsions consists of the cor- pora quadrigemina, medulla oblongata and spinal cord, while injuries in- flicted upon the optic thalami, corpora striata, the cerebrum, the pons varolii and the cerebellum, cause enfeebled motion, but no convulsions. Indeed, if any point in physiology is established, so far as the brain is concerned, it is this—viz., lesions or irritation of the medulla oblongata and spinal cord, alivays cause convulsions. Miiller, also, in reference to this same subject, says, Although owing to the re-action of different parts of the brain on each other, it is proba- ble that other parts than the corpora quadrigemina and medulla oblongata may, in disease, excite convulsions by sympathy, yet from the facts above mentioned (by Flourens and Hertwig) we may infer that, when the power of motion of the limbs is defective from disease in the central organs, the cause may be seated, either in the corpus striatum, thalamus opticus, hemispheres, pons, cerebellum, medulla oblongata or medulla spinalis ; but that, in cases of convulsions, or convulsions with paralysis, dependent on diseases of the brain or spinal cord, the seat of the disease is more likely to be in the corpora quadrigemina, medulla oblongata or spinal cord, than in the other parts of the nervous centres. .All the writers upon this subject have been more or less deficient and obscure ; and even M. Solly, who maybe said to be anion the most able of them, is. sometimes, not a little misty. As it is a ner- vous subject, it is possible they have all been a little nervous. Sir Charles Bell was reported to have thrown much light upon this system ; but Dr. Alexander Walker represents Mr. Bell's light as only lunar, and charges him with having stolen his thunder, which he (Walker) fulmina- ted to his pupils several years before Bell knew anything about it.