He found that an increase in the rectal
and abdominal pain followed lying down. He therefore spent day and night
sitting up. At the end of three weeks there was total paralysis of the
legs, and the outlook seemed most unfavorable.
Massage was begun again, strychnia and salol were administered, and a
short course of full doses of the testicular fluid was given. A rapidly
interrupted faradic current, with an uncovered electrode, to the
neighborhood of the rectum, bladder, and buttocks, greatly relieved the
anaesthesia, upon which galvanism had no effect; and, in brief, from a
state which looked almost as if the last paralytic stage of tabes had
suddenly come upon him, he recovered in two months, and is now (July,
1899) better than he was a year ago, before the relapse, and will
probably remain so, as he has had his warning.
Without multiplying case histories, it may be said that ataxic
paraplegia (a combination of lateral and posterior sclerosis) may be
treated in much the same manner. In this disease there is usually much
less pain than in ataxia, but greater weakness, and late in its course
some rigidity in the extensor groups of the legs; the knee-jerk is
preserved or exaggerated.
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