An essay on hysteria : being an analysis of its irregular and aggravated forms ; including hysterical hemorrhage, and hysterical ischuria / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on hysteria : being an analysis of its irregular and aggravated forms ; including hysterical hemorrhage, and hysterical ischuria / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    costive, hard, and lumpy, accompanied at the time with violent pain just above the navel. Soon after she ceased to pass her urine; the epigastric region became swelled and prominent from the spleen to the liver, and to the umbilicus, and extremely tender; her respira- tion quick and short, with cough; no appetite, and she vomited a dark fluid like chocolate-grounds occasionally, and her urine re- gularly for six months; sometimes it came up twice a day. All the matters vomited had a urinous taste. There was no fulness of the hypogastrium ; the pudenda were hot, dry, and sore. At the end of the period just mentioned, after delirium, insensibility, rigors, and acute pain about the umbilicus, she passed four or five stools composed of clotted blood, and shortly after about a pint of urine; this was followed by frequent desire to make water, which was bloody. During the succeeding seven months she continued to pass urine,'which was occasionally mixed with blood; the bowels were frequently torpid, the stools mixed with blood, and she had a severe attack of bloody vomiting. Her nights were generally sleepless. Animal food produced so much pain of the stomach and nausea, that she was obliged to confine herself to farinaceous food in small quantities. She had occasional syncope, contraction and spasmodic affections of the limbs, especially on the left side. For several weeks she sweated so profusely that it was often necessary to have her linen changed every hour. A long controversy was carried on in connection with this case. There were not a few who considered it a case of imposition. On the other hand, very weighty testimony was brought forward to prove its truth. The relator never saw his patient vomit urine, but was an eye-witness of a great proportion of the other circum- stances mentioned. Her sufferings produced little or no emacia- tion. 7. A young lady, the daughter of a respectable army surgeon, was under the care of her father and a physician for two years. The death of her brother by drowning had conspired, with other events, to induce syncope and a variety of nervous symptoms, which had resisted all the mineral, tonic, and nervous medicines which are commonly employed in such cases. Being sent to Yar- mouth, she came under the care of Dr. Girdlestone. She was about twenty years of age, fair, and not unhealthy in her complex- ion ; and though she was pale, yet she had more the appearance of a muscular than of a fat person. She had no use of her lower extremities, nor could she lie down without inducing fits of hiccough or vomiting. Animal food, or any liquid, immediately on entering the stomach, excited vomitings; and during the greater part of the two years she resided at Yarmouth, she was obliged to live en- tirely on fruit, and to sleep in an erect posture in a chair. The liquid vomited up proved to be urinous, and on standing for some time, had the healthy nebula of common urine. She usuallv vomited about six or eight ounces at a time, with intervals of about six or eight hours ; and if animal food had not been taken to hasten its