Observations on epilepsy, its pathology, and treatment / by William M. Cornell.

  • Cornell, William Mason, 1802-1895.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on epilepsy, its pathology, and treatment / by William M. Cornell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    as incurable: when he is sari, dumpish, silent; in a word, when he has lost all energy and courage. I have never known a patient of this de- scription recover. The better the spirits, the greater is the hope of re- covery. There is one peculiarity found in almost all epileptic patients, to which I will refer in this place. It is an unusual prominence or ful- ness and roundness of the eyes. They appear very round and pro- ject from their sockets, like the eyes of a rabbit. I have supposed this not to be original in these cases, but caused by the repeated attacks, and, probably, augmented by each new accession of the convulsion when the brain, of course, becomes congested. I have generally found those cases the most difficult to remedy in which the attacks are uniformly in the night. Such has been the fact; but the philosophy of it, I leave to abler hands. Those cases, too, in which there are frequent spasms between the convulsions, are more diffi- cult of cure than those in which the fits occur regularly at certain periods without the spasms. In attempting to benefit an epileptic, several indications are to be fulfilled. In the first place, an absolute control must be maintained over the diet. 1 have no doubt that the case related by Dr. Alcott, in the fifty- first volume, page 39, of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, was effected as there stated; and the reason that more cures are not per- formed in the same manner is, that neither physicians, patients, nor their friends, will pursue that course, as it respects diet, which it is absolutely necessary to pursue. I lay it down, then, as an absolute law, as fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians, or as any part of Napoleon's dy- nasty, that the patient must comply with the prescription of the physi- cian, as it respects diet. From what has been said of the nature of this disease—that its origi- nal cause is in the blood—it will be readily seen that it is of the utmost importance what and how much food is taken ; for all physicians know that the whole constitution—the whole mass of the fluids and solids of the body—may be changed by diet. This is the first rule, then— Mind the diet. 2d. The second is, govern the mind. Unless, this is done, but little benefit can be expected from medical treatment. The disease is often induced, at first, by the mind. I mean, this is the exciting cause. If the patient will get excited, will not govern the mind, control the passions, and be quiet, let him go. You cannot cure him or her; and here, again, is the cause of failure in many cases. 3d. The third is, never let the patient rust out for want of some use-