Clinical lectures on neurasthenia.

  • Savill, Thomas Dixon, 1856-1910.
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Clinical lectures on neurasthenia. 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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    any, for, to a very large extent, certain lesions are confined to certain age periods. These are the most important clues that I can give you at the present time. But there is one most satisfactory con- sideration. In the wards of a general hospital it is hardly possible to employ any one method sufficiently for it to become established in our minds; whereas here the number of nerve cases is so large that by repeated exercise we can easily acquire the habit of employing the best and most successful method. Pathology of Functional Disorders of the Nervous System. In referring just now to the anatomo-clinical method of research, I pointed out the necessity of employing both observation at the bed-side and observation in the post-mortem room. Both are necessary for the complete observation of a case. Now, unfortunately, in diseases of the nervous system there still remain a large number of disorders in which no anatomical changes can be found after death, either with the naked eye or with the microscope, which can account for the symptoms during life. These are known as functional disorders ; indeed, this is the usually accepted definition, albeit of a negative kind, of the term functional, and at the present time—I say it with regret—these constitute the majority of the cases of disease of the nervous system which come before us. In this group we are still compelled to include such common affections as epilepsy, migraine, hysteria, neurasthenia, chorea, and many other conditions. However, there is still a good deal to be learned about these diseases by their investi- gation during life. By employing the method of analogy I hope with the large field at our disposal, that our studies may be fruitful, even in this the most difficult domain of medical science. But it is desirable, at the very threshold of