Contributions to the study of shell shock (III) : being an account of certain disorders of cutaneous sensibility / by Charles S. Myers.

  • Myers, Charles S. (Charles Samuel), 1873-1946.
Date:
[1916?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Contributions to the study of shell shock (III) : being an account of certain disorders of cutaneous sensibility / by Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whether the opposite side was supernormally sensitive, although as a rule the patient’s 41 jumpi¬ ness ” and muscular over-reaction afforded a sufficient clue to the latter condition. The nature of the “ hypercesthesia.—Several cases of “ hyperaBsthesia ” presented features recalling to my mind those which have been emphasised by Head and Holmes 2 in their observations on lesions of the optic thalamus, and which have been attri¬ buted by them to a loss of the inhibitory control normally exercised by the cerebral cortex over the activity of the thalamus. They compare this loss of cortical control over the thalamus to the loss of cortical control over the bulb and cord; just as the latter manifests itself in muscular rigidity, increased reflexes, &c., so the former results in sensori-motor and affective over-reaction. In -such thalamic over-reaction a cutaneous stimulus pro¬ duces abnormal motor response, excessive tingling and diffuseness of sensation, and increased affective reaction of pain or pleasure. With the most careful avoidance of suggestion on my part, various patients suffering from local “ hypersesthesia ” after shell shock have given me the following observations: Cotton wool “ tingles more,” “ tingles and runs right up,” “ is more tingling,” “ tickles more,” “ is more ticklish,” “ itches more,” “ is more itchy,” “ gives me an awful feeling—a tingling tickle with an after¬ itch.” A pin-prick is “ like an electric current,” “ more like an electric shock,” “ stings like a bee,” “ shoots up the arm,” “ seems to run up more ’ (from foot to knee), “ shoots, more than usual up the leg and lasts longer as an after-tingling,” “ is sharper and itches more.” 3 As would be expected, such over-reaction when limited to one side of the body usually made localisation of the spots touched on that side distinctly more difficult and more inaccurate than on the normal side. No doubt the spatial threshold would have been raised, but I have not yet applied the compass tests to such cases. 2 Brain, vol. xxxiv., 1911-12, pp. 102-253; The Lancet, 1912, vol. i., pp. 79, 144. 3 It was this kind of disturbance of sensibility which was alluded to in Case 5, described in ray second communication.