A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 5 : $b Diseases of the nervous system
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 5 : $b Diseases of the nervous system
Medicine -- Practice
A general paralytic is at any time liable to congestive or maniacal
{202} attacks of short duration, and so is always, potentially, a
dangerous person. In the prodromal period the risk is small; in all
stages there will, in the majority of cases, be some warning; but in
the developed disease the only safe way is to have some responsible
person near at hand, both to prevent the patient from doing harm to
others and to save him from injuring himself, whether by intent or
through not knowing better than to wander off or fall into all sorts
of accidents. In many conditions several should be readily available,
or else the security of an asylum must be sought.
In the treatment of general paralysis by society the same rule should
obtain as in all forms of insanity—that distinct mental disease is
presumptive proof of irresponsibility, or at least of limited
responsibility; that a diseased mind means lessened intellectual power
throughout and diminished ability to choose the right and avoid the
wrong; that there are changes in circulation or nutrition, or some
unknown condition in the brain, especially in general paralysis, by
virtue of which the mental state and power of self-control vary from
time to time, and as a result of which a person seeming responsible
one day may have been quite irresponsible some previous day.
INSANITY FROM GROSS LESIONS OF THE BRAIN (tumors, new growths of all
kinds, exostoses, spicules or portions of depressed bone, embolisms,
hemorrhages, wounds, injuries, cysticerci, etc.) is attended with the
usual indications of those conditions which may determine diffuse
disorders of the brain, giving rise to any of the symptoms of the
various psycho-neuroses and cerebro-psychoses. The lowered mental and
moral tone after cerebral hemorrhages is a matter of common
observation, and after one an individual is rarely observed to be
fully himself again.
The PROGNOSIS is very unfavorable. Although there are rare cases of
improvement, the tendency is toward profound dementia.
CEREBRAL SYPHILITIC INSANITY comes either under the head of the
insanity last described or belongs to the slowly-advancing dementia
with final paralysis already referred to under the head of Diagnosis
in General Paralysis, and called by some authorities on mental disease
pseudo-paralytic dementia from syphilis.
Antisyphilitic treatment is of value in the first class of cases, and
although most of the recoveries end in relapses and incurability, the
prolonged use of iodide of potassium seems sometimes to effect a
permanent cure. It is claimed that similar treatment is followed by
the same result in the cases of dementia with paresis, but the weight
of authority, and certainly my own experience, are against that
statement.
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