Cerebral and mental symptoms in relation to somatic disease, anæsthetics and toxic agents, traumata and surgical procedures : with a review of the treatment of some cerebral and mental symptoms by operation / by James Christian Simpson.

  • Simpson, James Christian.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cerebral and mental symptoms in relation to somatic disease, anæsthetics and toxic agents, traumata and surgical procedures : with a review of the treatment of some cerebral and mental symptoms by operation / by James Christian Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    64/210 (page 52)
    r r ^^^^^^^ -kt: zrl cmring labour:—The woman had had seven children and wno TnitredT^ tr'^'^'k ^''^ '''' ' doctor hraVendar, and asked him to eave the room on an apparently innocent and st;bb dh''^^.' absence, sh'e cut L ZZl and stabbed herself twice in the heart and twice in the abdomen with a pocket-knife. There was insanity in the family which may account for the determined attempt. The insanity of pregnancy occurs in -5 per cent of the total admissions to all asylums and registered houses in England and Wales. ° Puerperal insanity has probably a more complex origin as there are at least two, if not three, factors which may all be acting m one case-(l) In every case there is the traumatism, and in many some obstetrical operation has been performed ; (2) there is in some cases undoubted septic infection; and (3) in others, difficult to distinguish from (2) and perhaps coincident with it, there may be auto-intoxication ihe consideration of this insanity will therefore be resumed when traumatic and toxic insanities are discussed. The psychoses of lactation are practically merely the results of anasmia, and hence do not usually appear till after several months' suckling or after weaning. Toulouse recorded twenty- five cases; eleven were melancholia, eleven mania, and three partial delirium. There were two deaths. The prodromata are usually excessive pallor, palpitation, insomnia, and indigestion, which latter may be a source of some toxins. Then some slight shock or a change of diet after the M^eaning may serve as an exciting cause, and the more definite symptoms appear, often ushered in by a slight delirium. As a rule, the recovery- rate is good, a strictly tonic regimen with ferruginous drugs