BEAIN TROUBLES. 289 



lower extremities, and with uncertainty in the combi- 

 nation of movement, probably depending on a com- 

 mencing organic change, either in the organ alone on 

 which the power of motion depends, or else in that 

 by which the co-ordination of movements is effected." 

 The king himself was not misled by the phraseology 

 in which the court physicians endeavoured to cloak 

 the fact that his brain was disordered. " Incapacity 

 to discharge his royal functions now brought on a 

 deep melancholy, and the king, even in the com- 

 mencement of his illness, expressed his conviction of 

 its incurability." The strength of the body failed 

 more and more as " the organ on which the power of 

 motion depends " became more and more diseased. 

 "The lower extremities, the muscles of which were 

 always weak, began to totter under the weight of the 

 body, and at the same time the power of combination 

 for the motions of those parts was impaired, and the 

 king was troubled with vertigo, particularly accom- 

 panying the movements of the head, and with vomiting, 

 which symptoms, in combination with diminution of 

 strength and the occurrence of involuntary muscular 

 spasms, indicated the existence of a more deeply- seated 

 affection, probably a softening in the central nervous 

 system." (One could imagine that as, of old, Spanish 

 courtiers adopted the conventional hypothesis that a 

 Queen of Spain has no legs, Dr. Liljewalch held that 

 the Kings of Sweden, and " royal personages" gene- 

 rally, have no brains.) The means employed to com- 

 bat the disease produced no good effects; "the 



