A case of unilateral catalepsy / by T. Grainger Stewart.

  • Stewart Thomas Grainger, Sir, 1837-1900.
Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of unilateral catalepsy / by T. Grainger Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    A CASE OF imLATERAL CATALEPSY. By T. GEAINGER STEWAET, M.D., E.E.C.P.E. Physician to the Royal Infirmary, and Lecturer on Clinical Medicine and on the Practice of Physic, Edinburgh. (Reprinted from The Practitioner, August 1876.) K. A., a pale, delicate-looking boy of nervous temperament, 13 years of age, came under my care in the Royal Infirmary on September 5th, 1874. His mother told us that he had been quite strong till he reached the age of 11, that he never met with any serious injury, was never overworked at school, and that nothing was known as to the cause of his illness. She was herself robust, her husband also was healthy, but both their other children were delicate, one being weak in mind. The com- mencement of the illness was in the autumn of 1872, and quite sudden. While apparently in perfect health he took a fit, with convulsions and loss of consciousness. It lasted five minutes. In the course of the same day another fit occurred. On the succeeding days they recurred with increasing frequency, and by the end of a week he had as many as thirty or forty in the course of twenty-four hours. He was at first treated for worms, liut without benefit. Fly blisters were applied to the back of the neck with the efi'ect—as it appeared—of diminishing the frequency of the attacks. About a fortnight after the first seizure the character of the fits changed, the convulsions were less severe, and at the commencement the left arm and leg were gradually raised, and they remained fixed and rigid while unconsciousness lasted, and slowly subsided as consciousness returned. Another fortnight later—a month after the com- mencement of the illness—he lost the power of moving his left arm and leg, but he continued subject to unilateral fits of cataleptic character. The fits were indeed at that time very frequent. There were forty-eight on one day. This state of matters continued for six months, and then rather suddenly the fits ceased, and on the following day motor power was