Syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, showing the part which this agent plays in the production of paralysis, epilepsy, insanity, headache, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and nervous derangements / by Thomas Stretch Dowse.

  • Dowse, Thomas Stretch.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Syphilis of the brain and spinal cord, showing the part which this agent plays in the production of paralysis, epilepsy, insanity, headache, neuralgia, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and nervous derangements / by Thomas Stretch Dowse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    centres of the encephalon, cannot produce any condition which would fairly be embraced by the term epilepsy. But as we pro- ceed from the medulla as a centre to the convolutional cortex, we shall find that an alteration in any part of this nervous mass, interrupting its stability or correlative integrity, will engender an epilepsy. If experience serve us well, and if we are to understand an epilepsy to be what is here stated, I think that we are right in concluding that there is no part of the brain which cannot of itself be the seat, from which an epileptiform seizure may be generated. And I would here state as my opinion, that whenever ■we have a profound epileptic seizure, with bilateral convulsive movements of sudden invasion and speedy departure, leaving the patient free to act voluntarily (a condition, by the way, which perverts the normal functional activity of every nerve-centre in the body), then we find a true and proper epilepsy, whose seat is the medulla oblongata and pons, and of this all other forms are merely types and gradations. Such was the view of Shroeder van der Kolk, and is still held, I believe, by Reynolds, Echiverria, Nothnagel, and possibly by the majority of observers. I do not know of any field of research more replete with interest of the highest order from an anatomical, pathological, physiological, and psychological point of view, than that which has been so carefully and studiously followed out by Dr. Hughlings Jackson and Dr. Wilks, in order to develop the idea which they alone in this countiy have promulgated, in reference to epilepsy ; and did I entirely agree with the doctrine which they expound, I should find little difficulty in drawing up a psycho-physiological scale of syphilitic epilepsy based upon sensory motor phenomena, and the result of the functional and organic impairment of those highest centres which are designated as the anatomical substrata of con- sciousness. But judging of epilepsy proper, from one anatomical standpoint previously noted, I can only say from what I have seen (and my field of observation has not been a limited one), that syphilitic epilepsy proper is an extremely rare affection, as the result of acquired syphilitic disease. On the other hand,