Neuralgia of the inferior maxillary nerve / by John Lizars.

  • Lizars, John, 1787?-1860.
Date:
[1821]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neuralgia of the inferior maxillary nerve / by John Lizars. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    were then employed, such as narcotics, purgatives, blisters, and local bleedings; but all to no purpose. The disease daily in¬ creased, both in severity and duration; and, after five months painful struggles, he applied at the Hospital, where he was put under the care of a physician of no inconsiderable talents, who administered narcotics both internally and externally to a great extent, to try their efficacy, before resorting to more powerful means. After six weeks ineffectual tfial, the man, worn out with his sufferings, and despairing of ever obtaining relief, re¬ quested his dismissal, which was accordingly granted. He then, by chance, happened to meet a patient on whom I had operated for hernia, who sent him to me. When he called on me, towards the end of December 1819, he was incapable of describing his sufferings, from the dread of bringing on a paroxysm; for whenever he spoke, eat, or moved any of the muscles of the right side of the face, instantly an at¬ tack came on. He referred me to his daughter, who accom¬ panied him. She then told me the preceding short history of her father’s complaint, and mentioned that the pain began near €o the second molar tooth of the inferior maxillary bone on the right side, darting from thence to the ear and to the eye and the temple of the same side, accompanied with a violent con¬ vulsive action of the muscles of the face, with redness of the skin, and a flow of tears. He had not been long in the room when a paroxysm attacked him, and I witnessed a painful ex¬ hibition of these symptoms; he clapped his hands to the sides of his head, as pressure always soothed his sufferings, and con¬ tinued writhing in agony for a few minutes. None but an eye¬ witness can conceive the tortures in this malady. Their effects are faithfully pictured by a French author as follows— Le malade qui est frappe d’une nevralgie maxillaire, redoute de prendre quelques alimens; la douleur est si vive que les malades se soumettent sans fremir aux operations les plus douloureuses r ils reclament aux memes les vesicatoires, les moxas brulans, la cauterization la plus cruelle: dans l’espoir de trouver un terme a leur maux, ils desirent avec ardeur le secours si generalement redoute, du bistouri. On a vu plusieurs malades mis au deses- poir par une nevralgie maxillaire, ne pas hesiter a se faire ar- racher successivement toutes les dents, a subir le contact repete du cautere rougi a blanc, braver les plus vives douleurs, et me- priser les cicatrises les plus hideuses; d’autres apres avoir tente sans succes une multitude de traitemens divers, n’esperont plus dans la puissance de l’art, ni dans celle de la nature, ont mis fin volontairement a une existence qui etait devenue pour eux le plus horrible des supplices. ” The paroxysms recurred every half hour, both in the day and during the night. When I