For several days the patient kept on improving slowly. She then had
another relapse. She slept well the night before, but woke up early
about six in the morning; she began to worry about her family, and
complained of headache. About half past eight the headache became
severe, there was again pain in the left side, the left hand began
to tremble, and felt anaesthetic, the eyelids closed, and could not
open, aphonia returned, in fact she fell into a state of mutism.
About ten o’clock patient opened her eyes, but she was unable to
talk. After long insistence on her reply to my question as to how
she was, she finally replied in a whisper: “Well,” then added “I
have a bad headache.” She had great difficulty in replying to my
questions, moved her jaws impotently before she was able to emit
a sound, her muscles were strained, the face was set, tense, and
drawn, the brow was corrugated, the eyeballs rolled up, and the
eyelids shut tightly. The patient was unable to raise her hands,
they lay powerless at her side. When raised the arms were found
to be lethargic, fell to her side, only the left hand manifested
light, fibrillary twitchings and a gross tremor. When insisted upon
that she must raise her arms, she became agitated, scared, began
to moan and cry. Claimed severe pain in head, in chest, in heart.
“Pain in heart, in head, I am afraid,” she moaned in a whisper.
There was loss of kinaesthetic sensibility, patient complained that
she did not feel her arms, “they are not mine.” She had to look
at the arm in order to find it. There was also present anaesthsia
to other sensations such as pain, touch, heat, and cold. After a
couple of hours’ rest the sensibility returned. The sensibility was
affected more on the left side than on the right, and also returned
earlier on the right side.
When the fatigue and the scare subsided the patient was tested
again. This time the reactions to sensory stimulations were normal.
The patient was touched, pinched, and pricked, she reacted to
each stimulus separately, and was able to synthesize them and
give a full account of their number. Kinaesthetic sensibility was
good,--she was fully able to appreciate the various movements and
positions in which her limbs and fingers were put.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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