On the clinical significance of double optic neuritis in children and young adults, and on the capacity for recovery from symptoms of tumour of the brain / by C.O. Hawthorne, M.D.

  • Hawthorne, C. O. (Charles Oliver), 1858-1949.
Date:
[1899]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the clinical significance of double optic neuritis in children and young adults, and on the capacity for recovery from symptoms of tumour of the brain / by C.O. Hawthorne, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Gowers, “ the signs of phthisis are rarely absent when there is tubercular tumour of the brain.” Further, the boy appeared to receive little or no benefit from antisyphilitic treatment, whilst he improved considerably under the use of iodide of iron and cod liver oil. CASE 3. Double optic neuritis followed by blindness and optic atrophy; history of vomiting, with slight headache every morning for six months preced- ing loss of sight, but no other cerebral symptoms and no “ illness ” confining patient to bed even for a single day; knee-jerks present, though right possibly defective. Jas. C., set. 13 years; examined on April 25, 1898. His complaint is loss of sight. According to the father, the boy had perfectly good sight until the early part of January, when he fell in the street and struck the back of his head against the pavement. No apparent injury followed the fall, but in the course of a fortnight the boy complained that he “ could not see well,” and soon he appeared to become quite blind. It seems, however, that for six or seven months before the fall the patient was troubled with vomiting, which occurred daily, but only in the morning before breakfast. After each act of vomiting he had some pain in his forehead for a time, but he was always able to go out and distribute newspapers and then to return and take breakfast, and after- wards to go to school. The vomiting still continues, but is entirely confined to the early morning. At no time has the boy been confined to bed or regarded as seriously ill, and as a proof of the comparatively recent failure of his eyesight it is mentioned that he won a prize for drawing at Christmas. It is .solely the blindness which, in the view of the father, consti- tutes the lad’s disability. The boy has not even perception of light in either eye : the pupils are dilated, and show no light response; each fundus provides evidence of consecutive optic atrophy.