On Arsenical Paralysis. 11 



with these of any other known disease and, finally, it is not easy to 

 say what poison the above named white powder could have been, whicli 

 traveller gave the patient, under the name of fly-food, if not arsenic. 

 Neither is there any other causes known which could explain the paralysis. 



Syiïiptomatology. Owing to the many cases of arsenic paralysis which 

 are to be found in literature the symptomatology for this form of paralysis 

 is fairly well known. Of late j^ears also several inquirers have summed 

 up these symptoms from a differential diagnostic point of view and 

 found that arsenic paralysis has its characteristic signs which distinguish 

 it from other forms of paralysis depending upon intoxication from other 

 poisons. 



Thus arsenic paralysis has amongst others been minutely dealt 

 with by Carl Alexander^) in an inaugural dissertation, by Scolozouboff^) 

 vpho supports himself on his own great experience gained in Russia, the 

 classical country for arsenic paralysis, and now recently by Erlicki and 

 Rybalkin^). 



As is the case with alcohol poisoning, according to Dana*) one 

 can distinguish two forms of paralysis. One of these is a pseudotabes 

 characterised by ataxy and disorders of sensibility and resembling the 

 pseudotabes which appears in alcohol intoxication and diphtheria. No 

 developed motor paralysis should be found in this form. (Dana). 



The other form again resembles the so called alcoholic or diph- 

 theritic neuritis. The simple neuritis and polyneuritis have of late years 

 been so often discribed that I need not here give any further account 

 of this form of illness. I will only point out that the symptoms of arse- 

 nic paralysis well agree with those of polyneuritis and thus the suppo- 

 sition that in the former polyneuritis exists even before section of such 

 a case is well warranted. Buth arsenic paralysis is distinguishable by 

 the following characters. In the first place, amongst the symptoms di- 

 sorders of sensibility predominate; the patient suffers from paraesthesia, 

 severe and continuous pains all along the nerve trunks and anœsthesia 

 in the peripheral ramifications as well as hyperaesthesia. The severe nerve 

 pains can continue long; anaethesia affects as it seems all forms of 

 sensation. 



1) Inaug. diss. Breslau 1889. 



2) Archives de Physiol, normale et pathologique Paris 1884. 



3) Archiv f. Psychiatrie Berlin. 1892. Bd. 23. 



4) Brain 1887. January. 



