A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
History
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 1 : $b Pathology and general diseases
Medicine -- Practice
In the walk of patients able to be upon their feet there may be much
significance. A hemiplegic subject will circumduct the feeble limb
after the other; one suffering with paraplegia will shuffle the feet
slowly along the floor; the hysterical paralytic drags the lame limb
behind the other; the patient with spastic spinal paralysis rises on
his toes in walking, with his legs held close together; the shaking
paralytic rather trots forward, with the body bent; and the subject of
locomotor ataxia lifts his feet and kicks out forward or sideways,
then bringing down the heels with a stamp at each step. In progressive
muscular atrophy and advanced pseudo-hypertrophic muscular paralysis a
waddling or rolling gait is seen. Choreic patients are very irregular
in their walk, as in all other movements. Hip disease (coxalgia) shows
itself in a child by its lifting the pelvis and limb of the affected
side and bending the knee, so as to touch only the toes to the ground.
Club-foot and other deformities require no description in this place.
Sensibility of the extremities and of other parts of the surface of
the body needs to be examined into, with all its possible variations
(hyperæsthesia, anæsthesia, analgesiæ, etc.), especially when the
nervous apparatus is for any reason supposed to be involved. Motions
of an unusual character must likewise be carefully noticed.
"Westphal's symptom" is regarded as having considerable diagnostic
value. It is otherwise called the tendon-reflex, with its
modifications. When a person in health is seated with one leg crossed
over the other or with the legs dangling over the edge of a high bench
or table, and a sudden blow is struck upon the tendon of the patella,
the leg and foot will be spontaneously jerked forward. In locomotor
ataxia, even from an early period, this tendon-reflex is abolished. In
spastic spinal paralysis (lateral spinal sclerosis) it is exaggerated.
Quite analogous to this is the ankle-clonus. This is obtained by
firmly flexing the foot and then tapping sharply upon the tendo
Achillis. The foot is then involuntarily extended and flexed several
times in succession. There is more doubt in regard to the associations
of this symptom than as to the knee movement, but it has been
clinically shown to be exaggerated in spastic spinal paralysis.
At our first acquaintance with a case of disease, while making inquiry
into its nature, the genital organs must not be forgotten. Not that we
need always make examination of them, but any pointing in symptoms
toward them must be borne in mind, so as to guide us in or toward
further procedures in diagnosis. In making, in obscure cases, a
diagnosis by exclusion, we are sometimes driven to a scrutiny of the
genital system.
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