The Retrospect of Medicine - 1864 Author:Unknown Author Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 9.—ON THE THERAPEUTICS OF CONVULSION. By Dr. Charles Bla1sd Radcliffe, Physician to the Westminster Hospital. There... more » is reason to believe that the diet in many eases of chronic convulsive disorder ought to contain somewhat more than an average quantity of oily and fatty matters, and somewhat less than an average quantity of lean meat. There is reason to believe that gymnastic exercises are very beneficial in the great majority of chronic convulsive cases. During the last three or four years I have seen several cases of epilepsy, chorea, and hysteria in which undoubted good has resulted from the adoption of a regular course of suitable gymnastic exercises; and the more I see the more I am satisfied that a course of this kind is a very important adjuvant in the treatment of these and many other cases. I recall to mind more than one case of epilepsy in which the patient has said that he has often warded off an attack which seemed to be imminent by a bout at the trapezium; and I have at present a case under treatment in which good seems to have been done by adopting a practice recommended by Dr. Henry Silvester in the treatment of consumption—a practice which may perhaps be brought under the head of gymnastics. Having ascertained that the mere dead weight of the arms hanging by the sides reduces the amount of air which might be taken into the chest to the extent of ten cubic inches or thereabouts, Dr. Silvester proposes that a phthisical person shall now and then eke out his insufficient respiration by breathing in such a manner as to get rid of this weight—by breathing, that is so say, with the hands taking hold of something fixed at a sufficiently high level, or, what answers the purpose still more easily, with the hands clasped tog...« less