A treatise on apoplexy, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral embolism, cerebral gout, cerebral rheumatism, and epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis / By John A. Lidell.

  • Lidell, John A.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on apoplexy, cerebral hemorrhage, cerebral embolism, cerebral gout, cerebral rheumatism, and epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis / By John A. Lidell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    P E E F A C E. M. LiTTRifi says : Le mot apoplexie, souvent aussi vague dans la louche du medecin, que dans celle du malade, se prete d toutes les interpretations de Vignorance.''^ (Vide Diet, de Med. ; article, Apoplexie.) The late Dr. JosTES QtJAiN remarked that when we look into works on medicine, we are struck with the confusion which exists in the nomenclature of cerebral diseases. {Mushet.) Besides, it is generally admitted that we know less concerning the structure, functions, diseases, and morbid anatomy of the brain than of almost any other part of the body. The following pages have been written because the author believed that he had something of importance to say on the subject of apoplexy. At first, he intended to write only a brief memoir on this topic. Accord- ingly, some four or five years ago, he began to prepare, from original cases and observations, an article for publication in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences ; but it soon became so bulky as to exceed even the capacious limits of that large and influential quarterly. The author was therefore compelled either to suppress what he had written, or to publish it in book-form. But, after mature reflection as to which of these courses he ought to pursue, it appeared to him that these cases and observations were much too numerous and valuable, and that they had cost the expen- diture of too much time and labor in their collection, to be lightly thrown away. Carefully recorded histories of the ante-mortem phenomena and post-mortem lesions of such cases are still far too few in number; and, indeed, it is probable that we can never make them too numerous, if we expect ever to clear up the obscure points in cerebral pathology and thera- peutics. Moreovei*, this writing constitutes the first instalment of what the author proposes to contribute as the quota of work required from him for illustrating the pathology and treatment of cephalic diseases and inju- ries. After the above remarks, it is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to say