Observations on functional affections of the spinal cord and ganglionic system of nerves, in which their identity with sympathetic, nervous, and imitative diseases is illustrated / by William Griffin and by Daniel Griffin.

Date:
1834
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on functional affections of the spinal cord and ganglionic system of nerves, in which their identity with sympathetic, nervous, and imitative diseases is illustrated / by William Griffin and by Daniel Griffin. 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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    O isted tenderness of the whole or the greater part of the spine. Before functional disorders of the cord became a subject of investigation with us, we were often much alarmed and perplexed by these epigastric pulsations •, and, in cases presenting many marks of an exquisitely nervous diathesis, were imperfectly contented to assume, with Dr. Baillie, Hunter, and others, that they were not dependent on or- g-anic disease; but we now have, it is hoped, in the spinal tenderness, a certain diagnostic, by which apprehension may be at once allayed. Even if it be true that it sometimes is to be met with in aneurism of the aorta, the latter we suspect would not, for a length of time, give rise to those peculiar nervous symptoms indicative of spinal irritation, which may at affec- in pure disorder of the ganglionic system, on the supposition that it does not occasion spinal tenderness; for here we should have the violent palpitation, as in aneurism, without any mark of affection of the cord. But it is to be recollected, that the great sympathetic connects and combines so many parts, by the intimate interweaving of its numerous threads, that no one portion of it could be seriously affected without inducing general disturbance of the abdominal or thoracic viscera. In any case of an hysterical or nervous cha- racter, palpitation from ganglionic irritation could not exist with symptoms so few and uncomplicated, and so analogous to what we might associate with physical effects, as those arising from aneurism. Instances of these affections of the arteries may be found as occasional symptoms, in almost every severe case of spinal irritation which we shall have occasion to quote. Perhaps no fitter opportunity may occur, to offer a few woids relative to the disease called angina pectoris, which we have had every reason, with M. Laennec, to regard as a neuralgic affection, and, as far as our experience has gone, connected with spinal tenderness; we can scarcely say yet, whether of the cervical or dorsal portions, or of both. In its .slighter degrees it is a very common affection in nervous habits, as will be evident from many of the cases given in o always be detected at the very earliest period of t tion. A more perplexing case may be imagined