The Clinical Journal, 1905, Vol. 26 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Clinical Journal, 1905, Vol. 26 of 2 Kussmaul, in Germany, has written an account of it, and several other Germans have done so, and there is a very imperfect account of the disease as it occurs in mines in Spain. The patient in the back ward of Mark, a man aged 68 years, whose case bears a general resemblance to paralysis agitans, when he came into the hospital difiered from a case of paralysis agitans at his age, in the tremors being more active than they generally are and he differed also from a case of paralysis agitans in this, that keeping him quiet and in bed in the hospital has enormously improved him. I do not suppose that we could cure him by keeping him in bed for years, but certainly keeping him here for weeks has verymuch benefited him. In my opinion, the reason of that is, that though he has paralysis agitans, his condition is aggravated, or has been aggravated from time to time, by the presence of mercury in his system. He made his living as a glass silverer, and that consists, you know, in rubbing an amalgam on the back of a sheet of glass and making it stick there so as to form a mirror. Whenever he went back to his work, as the note I read you showed, he had an aggravated return of his tremor. So he may be regarded as a man who has a morbid basis in his nervous system, which is illustrated by the occurrence of the fits which he had, whatever their nature may have been. They are not so clearly described by him as to enable one to be certain of their kind. But before he developed paralysis agitans he had suffered from mercurial tremors, and he has suffered again and again from them. SO I think this is to be regarded as a case of paralysis agitans which is altered in its aspect and a little altered in its course by the presence of mercurial poisoning. There is another man in the hospital. In Mark Ward, aged 4 5 years, who was poisoned by mercury in a different way. He was a thermometer-maker, and therefore he was poisoned by breathing in the vapour. I might remind you that when you write notes of cases of this sort, or look up books on the subject, you will see how important it is to dwell exactly on what the symptoms were that were produced; because these symptoms of mercurial poisoning produced by work are totally different from the symptoms of mercurial poisoning with which all medical men were familiar fifty or sixty years ago, and which we now and then see that is to say, the kind associated with loose teeth, spongy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.