An inquiry into the nature and causes of epilepsy; with the function of the spleen; and the use of the thyroid body, etc / [John Jackson].

  • Jackson, John, -1855
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the nature and causes of epilepsy; with the function of the spleen; and the use of the thyroid body, etc / [John Jackson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    rise to cerebro-spinal congestion? or what is the nature of the primary cause ?—It has already been observed that in epilepsy the seizure is sudden, and that it is commonly of only two or three minutes’ duration; the congestion therefore, to arrive at its height and to terminate in so short a space of time, must be dependent upon some cause preventing during that brief period the return of the venous blood from the brain and spinal cord simultaneously. Now what is there that is capable of producing this effect ? It cannot be any thing above the opening of the vena azygos into the superior cava, or the con¬ gestion would be merely cerebral, and not cerebro¬ spinal ; it must therefore be below. It is evident that the superior cava cannot oppose the return of blood from the brain and spinal cord; we must therefore descend to the right auricle ; and here we find no malformation, no change of struc¬ ture, nor indeed any physical cause capable of ar¬ resting the current which enters it by the superior cava. But in epilepsy this arrest does take place, and consequently some cause, near or remote, must prevent ingress by that venous trunk into the auricle ; for, if the blood have free and constant admission from the former into the latter, there can obviously be no cerebro-spinal congestion. There are, I conceive, at least two ways in which the ingress of blood into the auricle from the supe¬ rior cava may be suddenly prevented, and cerebro¬ spinal congestion consequently induced. Firstly, blood being returned to the heart of a quality more