406 GENERAL NEUROSES, OF UNKNOWN ANATOMICAL ORIGIN. 



for a few days or hours only, at the end of which time the eclampsia 

 terminates either in recovery or death. 



As regards the pathogeny of eclampsia, the same remarks apply 

 which we have already made concerning epilepsy. For reasons al- 

 ready given in detail, we may regard it as proved that the morbid 

 irritability of the motor nerves, of which the convulsions are an indica- 

 tion, originates from the medulla oblongata and base of the brain. 

 There also seems to be no doubt but that causes, similar to those 

 which result in an habitual irritative condition of the medulla ob- 

 longata, and epilepsy, may often (and especially during childhood) 

 induce an acute temporary state of irritability in the medulla with 

 eclampsia. Strictly speaking, the animals upon which Tenner and 

 EUssmaul experimented died of eclampsia, and not of epilepsy. It 

 is more than probable, also, that congestion may be capable of in- 

 ducing a state of acute irritability of the medulla, and may thus give 

 rise to eclamptic seizures. This sometimes happens, owing to the in- 

 troduction of foreign matter into the blood, as is shown in the rapidly 

 fatal convulsions which sometimes arise in uraemia and in cases of 

 narcotic poisoning. In this category, too, the convulsions belong, 

 which arise especially in children in consequence of infection from 

 miasmatic or contagious diseases, as also are those which usher in an 

 attack of scarlatina, measles, or small-pox; as well as those arising- 

 from the febrile crasis, and from fever-heat, and which often announce 

 the commencement of pneumonia and other inflammatory diseases of 

 childhood. The convulsions proceeding from the progress of acute 

 diseases of the brain and spinal marrow, and which are analogous to 

 the form of epilepsy arising from cerebral tumors and other chronic 

 disorders of the brain, are not counted as eclampsia, or, if so counted, 

 are distinguished as a separate and symptomatic form. Convulsions, 

 however, which proceed from excitement of the cerebral ganglia, trans- 

 mitted thence to the medulla oblongata, and which are the result of 

 terror and other emotions, are regarded as true eclampsia. Most fre- 

 quently, however, the medulla oblongata seems to derive the morbidly 

 irritative state, from which eclampsia proceeds, from an excitement 

 which is transmitted to it from the peripheral nerves. To this class 

 belong the convulsions from teething and from intestinal worms, and 

 those which occur from painful injury of the skin. 



The antagonism between the hemispheres and the basilar portion 

 of the brain is as great in this disorder as it is in epilepsy ; and we are 

 quite unable to explain why the convulsions are accompanied by loss 

 of consciousness. 



With regard to its etiology, it is to be remarked that, at the period 

 during which a state of habitual irritation of the medulla is most rare, 



