Читать книгу On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females онлайн

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This lesser excitement acts chiefly, I imagine, by preventing restoration, in the same manner as a drunkard whose brain is weakened by long indulgence in his baneful habit cannot resist temptation, but is, however, affected by much smaller quantities of stimuli, than when strong, he was able to take.

A striking instance of this kind occurred to me last year.

One of our most distinguished obstetric physicians requested me to operate on a lady who had been for some twenty years under very many eminent practitioners without any but temporary benefit. The result of the operation was most marked; the irritation subsided, the patient improved in health, and we confidently expected permanent relief. Yet in a few weeks after she left our hands and that of the nurse, irritation, resembling pruritus, gradually returned, and with it the other old symptoms.

In all cases of a similar nature which have come under my care, I have insisted on the importance of the patient being kept for a long time under careful medical watching and good nursing, and from the results already obtained from cases in which these precautions have been exercised, I feel confident of success for the future.