Annual Report of the Department of Public Charities of the City of New York Volume 11 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 Excerpt: ...whereby to recognize the existence of -jilepey, since it may be further ascertained that such unsymmetrical sliape is a peculiarity common to human skulls. There are, however, unilateral changes of the brain, hypertrophy and sclerosis, and a disproportion of weight of the cerebral hemispheres, which have been pretty constantly met with in the post-mortem examinations I have made. The symptoms of the epileptic paroxysm are so conspicuous and constant, that it is difficult for any physician not to recognize when a person is simulating epilepsy. The device is sometimes practised by real epileptics, particularly females. The following is a very simple way I have employed to ascertain without mistake if the fit be simulated: If the mouth and nostrils of a person seized with an epileptic paroxysm l)e covered with a handkerchief or towel, so that the passage of air into the lungs be for a. few moments completely arrested, no struggle r change occurs, unless the attack is at once checked, as it may happen sometimes in slight cases of epilepsy. The same operation, practised npon an impostor, will determine quickly a struggle on his or her part to avid asphyxia; the reason of the contrary effect in the first case being the fixed state of the muscles of the chest, usually observed on the falling of any epileptic, and thereby producing a cessation of the respiratory movements, whereas the impossibility to continue for any length of time without breathing renders simulation evident in the second case. The influence of intemperance in the production of epilepsy and paralysis strikes no less prominently in the accompanying statistics than in those of last year. This fearful agency also keeps patients constantly returning to the Hospital, and its evil may reach a high...