' The following are the brief notes of the
condition in which I found her, which I made in my case-book on the day
of my first visit. 'I found the patient lying on an invalid couch, her
left arm paralyzed and rigidly contracted, strapped to her body to keep
it in position. She was groaning loudly at intervals of a few seconds,
from severe pain in her back. When I attempted to shake her right hand,
she begged me not to touch her, as it would throw her into a
convulsion. She is said to have had epilepsy as a child. She has now
many times daily, frequently as often as twice in an hour, both during
the day and night, attacks of sudden and absolute unconsciousness, from
which she recovers with general convulsive movements of the face and
body. She had one of these during my visit, and it had all the
appearance of an epileptic paroxysm. The left arm and both legs are
paralyzed, and devoid of sensation. She takes hardly any food, and is
terribly emaciated. She is naturally a clever woman, highly educated,
but, of late, her memory and intellectual powers are said to be
failing.
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