Selected monographs.

  • Kussmaul, Adolf, 1822-1902.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    114/455 (page 98)
    of the brain has produced real, or, at any rate, pure epileptic attacks.^ Being anxious to ascertain the influence of plethora of the brain, and lilcewise of the pressure on that organ which it occasions, in the production of epileptic affections, we divided the cervical branches of the sympathetic nerve of several rabbits, tying the external and internal jugular veins. Directly after we apphed the ligature, the eyeballs protruded considerably from their sockets ; the number of respirations gradually diminished, but in no instance suddenly— sometimes, however, to an extraordinary degree (once, within half an hour, from 135 a minute before the operation to 18 after the same); the respiration became snoring and ratthng; the glottis hecameparalysed ; while stupefaction, weakness in the legs, and diffi- culty of breathing became more and more marked, without the animals, however, losing consciousness, or the power of sitting upright; and finally, gnashing of the teeth, and slight transient convulsive movements of the limbs succeeded. These dangerous symptoms, notwithstanding, disappeared in all cases as gradually as they had come on, and the disturbance in the circulation became at ' Compare in particular Stannius, ' Ueber die krankhaften Verscliliessungen grosserer Venenstamme des meuschliclien Korpers,' 1839; aud M. Hall, ' Synops. ou Cerebral and Spinal Seizures,' &c. Of the various cases the fol- lowing appear to us especially important. Giutrac (according to Staunius) ob- served, in a child four years old, attacks consisting of a momentary stoppage of voluntary movement with diminished sensibility, in which the mental faculiies are said to have remained active whilst speech was covipleteli/ gone. The child began to suffer in this way when only a year old. The superior longi- tudinal sinus was transformed into a stiff cord, and the veins emptying into it were gorged with coagulated blood. Prichard (loc. cit.) found in the corpse of an epileptic subject organized plugs in the whole of the lateral sinus. (Were the plugs the cause or effect of epilepsy ?) Tounele (' Froriep's Notizen,' 1829, vol. xxiv, p. 142), in a girl nine years old, after obstruction by plugs of the superior longitudinal, the lateral, aud the occipital sinuses of the right side, observed dizziness, with tendency to swooning for two days; then deep sleep, attended by slight convulsions of the left side, and finally resulting in death. A child two years old, during the last moments of its existence, became suddenly affected with convulsions, and great rigidity of the body and limbs. Plugs filled the superior longitudinal sinus, both lateral sinuses and the internal jugular veins. In both instances blood was extravasated below the arachnoid of the cerebral hemispheres; in one it even went so far as to produce softening of a portion of the right hemisphere of the cerebrum.