signates as 'A Shaking Palsy,'
apparently from worms, he describes thus, "A poor boy, about twelve
or thirteen years of age, was seized with a Shaking Palsy. His legs
became useless, and together with his head and hands, were in
continual agitation; after many weeks trial of various remedies, my
assistance was desired.
"His bowels being cleared, I ordered him a grain of Opium a day in the
gum pill; and in three or four days the shaking had nearly left him."
By pursuing this plan, the medicine proving a vermifuge, he could soon
walk, and was restored to perfect health.
Whether these cases should be classed under Shaking Palsy or not, is
necessary to be here determined; since, if they are properly ranked,
the cases which have been described in the preceding pages, differ so
much from them as certainly to oppose their being classed together:
and the disease, which is the subject of these pages, cannot be
considered as the same with Shaking Palsy, as characterised by those
cases.
The term Shaking Palsy is evidently inapplicable to the first of these
cases, which appears to have belonged more properly to the genus
_Convulsio_, of Cullen, or to _Hieranosos_ of Linnaeus and Vogel[10].
[Footnote 10: Corporis agitatio continua, indolens,
convulsiva, cum sensibilitate.--_Linn._
Agitatio corporis vel artuum convulsiva continua, chronica,
cum integritate sensuum.--_Vogel._
This genus is resolved by Cullen into that of Convulsio.
_Synops. Nosol._ 1803.
Dr. Macbride has given a very interesting and illustrative
case of this disease.
"Hieranasos, or Morbus Sacer, so called, as being vulgarly
supposed to arise from witchcraft, or some extraordinary
celestial influence, is a distinct genus of disease, though a
very uncommon one; the author once had an opportunity of
seeing a case. The patient was a lad about seventeen, who at
that time had laboured under this extraordinary disease for
more than twelve years. His body was so distorted, and the
legs and arms so twisted round it, by the continued
convulsive working, that no words can give an adequate idea
of the oddity of his figure; the agitation of the muscles was
perpetual; but in general he did not complain of pain nor
sickness; and had his senses perfectly, insomuch that he used
to assist his mother, who kept a little school, in teaching
children to read." _A methodical Introduc
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