Other conditions that have been invoked as possible causes are the
intoxications and infections, alcoholism, saturnism, mercury poisoning,
typhus, pneumonia, paludism, etc. Oppenheim has signalised the
reappearance, after several months of respite, of a torticollis
secondary to an attack of influenza. Overwork, accident, occupation,
have in their turn been suggested. In some cases, as a matter of fact,
it does seem that the last is of some import, since the incidence of the
torticollis is to a certain extent on those muscles that have been
actively employed in the pursuit of a profession, and they thus acquire
a sort of functional hyperkinesis.
Graff's[82] case of clonic convulsive contractions of the left splenius,
left deep rotators, and right sternomastoid, occurred in an individual
obliged, when carrying heavy loads, to maintain his head in a fixed
position to the left, and unable thereafter to turn it to the right.
In some quarters no little importance is attached from the pathogenic
point of view to the actual state of the muscles, and in particular to
atrophy or hypertrophy of the sternomastoids. Féré holds that sometimes
unilateral atrophy may occasion abnormal contraction of the opposite
muscle, but such muscular changes are, in our opinion, much less likely
to be the cause than the consequence of reiteration of movement or
conservation of attitude. Legenmann's case was one of tonic and clonic
convulsion of the right sternomastoid where there was a cartilaginous
tumour in the left.
The rôle played by ocular affections, by troubles of vision and of
accommodation, in the genesis of wryneck is frequently no insignificant
one, and it is curious how often patients attribute the mischief to the
strain of overwork in bad light. Strabismus (Walton) and ocular palsies
(Nieden) have also been known to lead to lateral deviation of the head
and permanent torticollis. There has been described a variety _ab aure
læsa_.
Albeit these factors have a share in determining the gesture and
attitude adopted by the patient, the resulting torticollis is not of
necessity mental. That which, according to Romberg, is provoked by
compression of supraclavicular nerve filaments is unmistakably a spasm.
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