Clinical medicine : cases / by Dr. M'Call Anderson.

  • Anderson, McCall, 1836-1908.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical medicine : cases / by Dr. M'Call Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    CASE OF TUMOUR OF MEDULLA OBLONGATA. On the 4th June of the present year, a student of divinity, aged 37, was admitted into the side-room of Ward II. with a very unusual train of symptoms, the cause of which it will now be our endeavour to elucidate. One morning, about three years ago, on wakening, he observed that h.6 had a left internal squint; slight at first, it gradually became more pronounced, so that at a distance of 15 feet images appeared one yard apart, but in about four or five months it in great measure disappeared, unless after a bad night's rest. Shortly after this he had for a time some confusion of ideas, and very slight pain in the back of the head and upper part of the spine, which was followed in a few months by drowsiness, to such an extent that he was constantly falling asleep; this drowsiness gradually deepened into a sort of stupor, from which he was aroused with some difficulty. This symptom, too, about tlie same time to a great extent passed off. About the beginning of the present year he suffered from loss of appetite, indigestion, and occasional vomiting, which confined him to bed for a few weeks, on leaving which he observed for the first time that he had some difficulty in walking. Two months ago he sprained his left leg, when he took to bed again for a couple of weeks, chiefly, as he says, on account of the shock which it gave him. Since then the difficulty in walking has been more marked, not on account of any loss of power in his limbs, he thinks, as they seem to him to be as strong as ever they were, but on account of giddiness, and an inclination to fall, sometimes backwards, sometimes forwards, but oftenest backwards. The day before he hurt his leg he had two nervous attacks, and while in bed on account of the injury he had eight or ten more, all of which closely resembled, though they were more severe, than one which he had the day after his admission, of which the following is a brief outline:— _ About 4.30 A.jr., on the day in question, he began to suffer from hiccough and severe frontal headache, with uneasiness in the eyes and tingling in all his extremities. About 8 A.M. he began to expectorate large mouthfuls of clear, sometimes frothy, tenacious saliva. The salivation continued more or less all day, about two