Vol XIV, No 3-4 (1907)

The issue of disorders of general and special sensitivity in case of epilepticus was outlined by Echeveria as early as 1870, which, noting the disorder of sensitivity in epileptics, also overshadowed disorders in the area of ​​the higher sense organs, pointed to deafness, loss of taste, and weakening of vision observed with epileptics. Thomsen and Oppenheim, studying in 94 epileptics skin sensitivity, muscle sense, visual field, hearing, taste and smell, 33 observed a disorder of sensitivity. The authors divided all disorders into short-term and persistent, and persistent disorders were observed in patients with long-standing seizures, in the weak-minded; the authors attached great importance to the change in the psyche of epileptics, but the epileptic seizure itself or its nature, in their opinion, does not have a particular significance for the appearance of these disorders. During attacks of somatic epilepsy, no sensory disturbances were observed.

This work is in connection with the studies by Chiari and Schwalbe on the position of the lower parts of the cerebellum. Chiari considers these data to be extremely interesting because it shows how much congenital hydrocephalus can affect the cerebellum and medulla oblongata, and on the other hand, from this point of view, it can be explained in some cases of hydrocephalus, certain clinical phenomena observed here.

After the publication of the above-mentioned article, I got some facts confirming the principle of the distribution of ideas in the course of thoughts.

I will preliminarily give a few general remarks about sensations. In the early periods of animal life, when the nervous tissue with a central organ had already been formed, the sensitivity was uniformly distributed over the surface of the body. Differentiation for sight, hearing, taste, etc., has not yet been. Then the central nervous organ, which was an accumulation of nerve cells in some place of the body, constantly received weak excitation from each part of the body surface.

Among the very diverse symptoms in which hysteria is expressed, one of the largest places is occupied by dream-like states and, mainly, those that arise spontaneously, and not under the influence of hypnosis, although they are not very common. Such conditions are known to include catalepsy, lethargy, and somnabulism. One of these states I had to observe partly in the Kazan provincial zemstvo hospital, partly in the Kazan District Hospital.

The author begins his work with the words that the psychology that he will expound bears little resemblance to the psychology that has been the subject of study until now. In objective psychology, there should be no place for questions about subjective processes or processes of consciousness, therefore there should be no place for introspection. Self-observation is not enough even to study one's own mental life. Objective psychology has in mind to study and explain only the relationship of a living creature to the surrounding conditions that affect it in one way or another, without aiming to find out those internal or subjective experiences, which are known as conscious phenomena and which are accessible only to self-observation. All mental items should only be subject to objective registration and control.

Delasiauve divided auras, as a set of phenomena of the onset of a seizure, into motor, sensitive and intellectual, according to which convulsive blinking, painful sensitivity to light, etc. are observed in front of our eyes. Among other authors, Pichon adheres to the division of the aura into distant and immediate prodromal symptoms. The authors of the article call any manifestation from the side of the eyes that precedes an attack in half an hour as prodromal. During this period, various and transient paralysis of the ocular muscles, changes in accommodation, heaviness of the eyelids and increased intraocular pressure, photopsia and progressive amblyopia with blindness for several seconds were noted.

The author gives a description of the case, in his opinion, the only one so far in the literature. She was 80 years old, a cheerful old woman consulted a doctor about severe pain in the right supraorbital region; 3 days after the onset, dark spots were found in the lower and upper orbital areas, as it were, of ecchymosis, and it was precisely established that there was no traumatic moment. Severe pain when touched barely allowed a finger to be touched; the subsequent course of ecchymosis was normal. The innervation of the entire area captured by ecchymotic spots, located in the correct belt around the orbit, is described very accurately, and, according to the author, the topographic relations of spots and innervation are so characteristic in their coincidence that the whole process can be attributed to changes in sensory and trophic disorders mainly in the branches frontalis and upper branch n. trigemini of this area.

The first steps of psychiatry during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Dr. Shumkov. Works of the Society of Kiev Doctors for 1907.

An interesting article by Dr. Shumkov emphasizes with one superfluous feature the conditions that were set in the medical case in the sad memory of the Russo-Japanese war.

Clerical routine, lack of creative initiative an indifferent attitude towards everything that violated the strictly limited framework of the "state-by-state" - all these features of the deathly bureaucratic worldview were reflected in the setting of psychiatry in the last war.

In the summer of this year, the editorial office of the Moscow newspaper "Stolichnoye Morning" was fined by the Governor-General of Moscow for 3000 rubles, and the Moscow City Administration decided to bring the editor of the same newspaper to justice for disseminating false information about the city's psychiatric patronage in print, since the audit carried out - and administrative, and city did not confirm the news of the newspaper "Capital Morning". Nevertheless, apparently, in connection with the same newspaper articles, the Moscow City Administration instructed the conference of doctors of the Alekseevsk psychiatric hospital to work out a project for reorganizing the city patronage. As we know, this draft has already been worked out at the present time, but has not yet been submitted for consideration by the Duma; it concerns mainly the increase in the medical staff of patronage and the rules for persons taking into their care the mentally ill city of Moscow; The very nature of psychiatric patronage in the project has not changed at all, since its main goal is only to protect the Alekseevskaya hospital from excessive overcrowding. Such a careful "reorganization" of the patronage business can hardly be welcomed, but it has many chances to meet with support from the current staff of the City Zairava.

Chronicle of the Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists at the Imperial Kazan University, 1907 Minutes of meetings.