On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    But the improvement, if any, was not sustained. He left the hospital soon afterwards, completely paraplegic, and despairing of further relief. Whatever power of volition remained in this man's legs and lower body, was necessarily developed by the numerous enquiries to which he was subjected, respecting the local effects of the alkaloid salt; and, by this contingent impulse to the fibre, the slight increase of its contractile energy may be in part explained. Severe nocturnal headache, interrupting sleep, three or four hours after the strychnia pill had been taken, was a frequent symptom in the case. This never happened on nights when the pill was omitted. As facts in experimental physiology, these con- trived spasms of the voluntary muscle are of great and undoubted interest. Proclaimed and published by the practising case-monger, they are turned by him to practical and profitable account. To the physician they are of no avail. For him, it is not enough that the muscle be made to move, unless in harmony with others, and by the will's consent. In the treatment of muscular palsy, his means of pre- scription are warranted only to this end. His test of recovery is the use of the limb. Medicines of the diuretic class, in every variety, mild or acrid in their operation, have been much used in the treatment of paraplegia; sometimes, with apparent benefit. Of turpentine, the writer has made