She was
deaf and blind; her face often flushed, sometimes deadly cold; her hands
clay-cold, often blue, and difficult to warm with the most vigorous
friction. These attacks passed off in from twenty minutes to a couple
of hours.' Soon 'the attacks became more frequent, with the reappearance
of another old symptom,--acute tenderness of the spine, especially over
the sacrum. Then came frequent and persistent attacks of sciatica, and
gradual loss of strength.' About this time there appears to have been
some uterine lesion, for a well-known gynaecologist went down to the
country to see her. Eventually 'she became unable to do anything almost
for herself, for the nervous irritability had distressingly increased.
To touch her bed, the ringing of a bell, sometimes the sound of a voice,
sunlight, &c., affected her so as to make her almost cry out.' 'If she
stood up, or even raised her hands to dress her hair, they immediately
became blue and deadly cold, and she was done for.' Then followed
palpitations of a distressing character, with loud blowing murmur, and
pulse of 120 to 140, for which she was seen by an eminent physician, who
diagnosed them to be caused by 'slight ventricular asynchronism, with
atonic condition of the cardiac as well as of all other muscles of the
body.
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