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
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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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    in the slightest degree. The length of the cervical spines, and the overlapping of the dorsal, not to mention the strong ligaments and massy muscles covering the transverse processes, render the spinal cord as secure from pressure from without, as the brain. Organic disease of the vertebrae may go on to an extraordinary extent, and also, even of the cord itself with very little or no ten- derness of the vertebral column,* and but slight functional de- rangement of the organs in connection with the spinal chord. Vel- peau has Collected twenty-five cases of disorganization of the me- dulla oblongata without disturbance of the nervous functions. In some, four inches of the spinal cord was changed into a reddish fluid, so that he somewhat hastily infers the spinal marrow is not indispensable to sensation and motion.)- These considerations are advanced not to disprove the existence of that morbid state of the nervous system recently designated spi- nal irritation, but merely to show that tenderness of the spinal column is a sign of little value. It might farther be shown that the nervous fibrils of the tender part are in a state analogous to that of the nerves in subcutaneous tubercle, or in epilepsy accompanied with aura commencing at a diseased or irritated nerve. This question I shall again notice. It is universally acknow- ledged, however, that irritation of the nerves of one organ may be communicated to those of a second, having an anatomical or func- tional connection. The catamenia are seldom established without aching and neuralgic pains of the back and lower extremities; par- tial anaesthesia, (numbness,) and tetanic contractions (cramps) of the legs. The action of the testicles on the muscles of the back in certain states is well known, causing an aching, which is merely a sense of fatigue arising from impaired power of the lumbar muscles. The transit of a calculus along the ureter will cause pain in the tes- ticle, and a variety of sensations in the thighs. In the diseased bladder of old men there is very constantly painful heat and tender- ness of the soles of the feet. Stricture of the urethra will excite numbness inside the knees; and pain in the loins, hip, down the thighs, and in the soles of the feet.J The introduction of a bougie will cause pain in the thigh,§ but the most curious instance of this kind is the counter-irritation, which the New Zealanders success- fully practice in traumatic tetanus, by making the urethra the track of a coarse seton thread.|| The cramps of diarrhoea, and other symptoms of a host of diseases implicating the abdominal viscera, might be mentioned, if not obvious to every one. There is scarcely a case recorded in these papers in which this principle of sympa- thetic irritation is not exemplified. * Analytical review of Travera on Constitutional Irritation, in Medieo-Chi- rurgical Review, Vol. xxiv., p. 44. j- Archives Gen. 1825. % Mr. Bingham, in Essays quoted, p. 31. § Ibidem, 278. || Such I have seen stated in some recent work on New Zealand or the Sand- wich Islands.