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

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She was found dead, and with every evidence of having expired during a paroxysm of abnormal excitement.

These cases will illustrate how important it is to arrest the disease ab initio, and the treatment must be the same whether we wish to cure functional disturbance, arrest organic disease, or, finally, if we have only a chance, of averting death itself.

The time required for recovery must depend, not only, as has been already hinted, on the duration of illness, but also on the peculiar temperament of the patient, and judicious after-treatment; this latter requiring long perseverance on the part of both practitioner and the friends of his patient; and it is as we meet a favourable or unfavourable case that the opinions of Brown-Séquard, as to instant cure on removal of irritation, or of Handfield Jones, as to cure after a long interval, are verified.

I have pleasure in stating that, with reference to the origin of most nervous affections of females, I have, in frequent conversation with Brown-Séquard, found that the views of this distinguished physiologist entirely coincide with my own, and he often expressed himself as satisfied that destruction of the nerve causing irritation was the only effective cure; the best mode of carrying out this destruction was, in his opinion, yet to be determined. He used actual cautery.