Neuralgia : its various forms, pathology, and treatment / by C. Toogood Downing.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neuralgia : its various forms, pathology, and treatment / by C. Toogood Downing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    tion were present, unless circumstances developed the peculiar diathesis on which it depends. On this account, I believe that the resulting pain is not always of one kind, but may possess all the charac- ters of either spasmodic, rheumatic, or hysterical neuralgia. Another circumstance is also deserving of notice, because of its practical bearing: namely, that the nervous irritation has the same tendency to spread —to extend itself—in these as in other cases. It may have a local origin in the extremity of one nerve, and not only involve all the neighbouring fibrils, but travel upwards along its course, until distant parts are implicated in the disorder. This is well illustrated by a case detailed by Mr. Mayo,* (and which is somewhat in corroboration of the views of Dr. Marshall Hall,) of a woman who had pain and tenderness in a stump after amputation; and this pain extended up the thigh to the sacrum, and spread secondarily down the other leg, so as to pro- duce cramp and contraction of the toes. In the treatment of traumatic neuralgia, the patience of the surgeon is often heavily taxed. No fixed rules can be laid down for his guidance, but everything must depend upon his judgment and