350 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



unattended with expectoration, and often carried on until it ended in retching and 

 vomiting. The difficulty of breathing was chiefly at night ; usually it was slight, 

 but now and then quite asthmatic in character ; almost invariably it was accom- 

 panied by a sharp pain in the left side, or by severe aching in the left shoulder and 

 down the left arm. An examination of the chest failed to detect anything wrong 

 with the heart or lungs, but pressure along the spine revealed tenderness in the 

 neck and back, and at the same time brought on cough, deep inspirations, pain 

 and throbbing at the pit of the stomach, and a feeling of great faiiitness and 

 breathlessness. On this occasion a very fair state of health was soon re-established 

 by the plan of treatment which proved successful in the first instance. 



Two years later, this lady, then married again, applied to her doctor. For three 

 weeks she had been in bed with her knees bent, and the thighs drawn up tightly 

 against her abdomen. This contraction was unremitting during the waking state, 

 and only partially relaxed during sleep ; it was unattended by pain, and could for 

 the time be overcome by slow and steady extension. The headache and faceache 

 had quite gone, and so had the pain at the pit of the stomach, and in the left 

 shoulder and arm ; the cough, and difficulty of breathing, and palpitation, were of 

 rare occurrence, the appetite and digestion, and the action of the bowels, were 

 tolerably natural, and the patient now complained chiefly of colicky pains in the 

 lower part of the abdomen, pains often very severe and sickening about the loins and 

 hips, with constant calls to pass water, attended with considerable pain on so doing. 

 The spine was now tender, not in the upper part, but quite low down towards the 

 loins ; and pressure over this region brought on colicky pains in the lower part of 

 the abdomen, with an almost irresistible impulse to pass water then and there. 

 Pressure in the upper part of the spine gave rise, not to the marked symptoms 

 produced in this way in the two previous illnesses, but simply to a disagreeable 

 thrill all over the bocty. There was no numbness or tingling in the legs or else- 

 where, but tickling the soles of the feet gave rise to painful spasmodic shocks in the 

 legs, to a disagreeable thrill passing up the body as high as the throat, and to the 

 involuntary escape of a small quantity of iirine. The condition of the general 

 health was fairly good, in fact much better than during the two previous illnesses. 



It appeared that somewhat more than twelve months before, after having been 

 quite well for the year previously, the patient married, and in due course became 

 pregnant. In the early months of pregnancy she had much headache, depression, 

 weakness, and sickness ; but after a while these symptoms passed off, and every- 

 thing went on smoothly and satisfactorily until two months after confinement, when 

 her baby died suddenly. The fretting about her baby brought back the old head- 

 aches, the headaches produced great sleeplessness and irritability of the stomach, and 

 then came on a state of uncontrollable fidgetiness which kept her incessantly 

 moving about until her legs, one leg especially, failed altogether, and obliged her to 

 take to her bed, when on the very next morning the leg had become contracted. 

 The treatment on this occasion consisted chiefly in a liberal allowance of food and 

 wine, in repeated blisterings over the spine, and in the administration of bromide 

 of potassium ; the result was the cessation of the contractions in about three weeks, 

 and the complete re-establishment of health in about two months and a half. 



