Vol XV, No 4 (1908)

In June 1907, all of Russia was amazed and indignant at the crafty involvement and villainous torture of a member of the Union of the Russian People in Odessa, M. L. Melnikov, by some party of people.

According to Russkaya Rech, the circumstances of the case were as follows. On May 9 in the afternoon, a young man, 17 years old, M. L. Melnikov, who was a pupil of the Odessa Theological Seminary, was walking along the Nikolaevsky Boulevard in Odessa. Tired of the walk, Mr. Melnikov sat down on a bench opposite the apartment of the district commander, Mr. Kaulbars. Three young Jews were sitting on a bench nearby. Soon Kaulbars and his family came out onto the balcony of the vis-a-vis house.

In the history of the doctrine of aphasia, there are already several eras. The most accurate moment in the history of this doctrine was in 1861, when Broca made a report at the Paris Medical Academy, in which, on the basis of two autopsies, he argued that the integrity of the third and partly the second left frontal gyri is necessary for the correct formation of speech.

A few years later, the fact was noted that a violation of the integrity of the Broca gyrus inevitably entails aphasia, but that aphasia is far from always associated with a lesion of the Broca gyrus. Already Meynert (1866) and Sander (1869) proved that the symptom complex of aphasia and its anatomical basis are much more complex than Broca suggested.

Before describing the patient observed by me with myasthenic paralysis or myasthenia gravis, I allow myself to report some data on this rather rare disease, noticed 15-20 years ago. —Myasth. gravis is clinically expressed in rapid and severe fatigue and weakness of voluntary muscles, reaching paresis and temporary paralysis.

Despite a significant number of observations (more than 200) and despite more than 50 autopsies, the essence of the disease has not yet been clarified, and the question has not been resolved whether to classify myasthenia gravis as an independent disease, or to look at it only as a symptom complex.

The author describes a case where, on the basis of clinical data - dizziness, coordination disorders, a long course and the absence of indications of lues during the life of the patient, it was suggested that the cerebellum was affected. An autopsy revealed the presence of two tumors, cystic degenerate, each about ¹/₂ of a chicken egg, located in the tonsilla et flocculus region of both hemispheres of the cerebellum, on the sides of the medulla oblongata (in the angle between the pons and the cerebellum). On cuts, it was found that the substance of the cerebellum was separated from the mass of the tumor and was only squeezed by the tumor, which was in connection with the auditory nerve under the pia mater.

The author describes his own observations of 5 patients with cerebellar cysts. Based on his own observations and a review of the literature on this issue, he comes to the following conclusions.

A condensed report of the above infirmary for 1 year 6 months. the Russo-Japanese War led the author to the following conclusions; among injuries, damage to the nervous system is not the last in terms of the severity of its consequences, and among them injuries of the spinal cord and brain are the most bleak. Most of these wounded remain disabled for the rest of their lives.

Describing several cases of traumatic psychosis, which had a peculiar course and are interesting especially because they belonged to the earliest stages of the development of mental illness during the Russo-Japanese War, the author notes the following features of the course of traumatic psychosis in war: Hereditary aggravation and stigmata of degeneration are found in traumatic psychosis more often than 50% and apparently play the role of the soil on which the disease develops. The mood of patients is depressed, timid, elevated very rarely.

The author, in a rather concise essay, examines, on the basis of 20 years of observation, feigning illnesses in prisoners and says that the latter simulate diseases of all organs and systems, except for acute infectious diseases. No feigning illnesses were observed in children. Men seem to feign more often than women; untried men and women more often feign than other categories of prisoners in order to extend the time before the trial, and in the meantime to discuss their investigative case in more detail before the trial, in a word, to utilize everything around them for their own benefit by their imaginary illness.

The work consists of two very voluminous volumes and has been published in a very complete and detailed manner. It seems completely impossible to state its content, even the features of the author's views. We have to confine ourselves to indicating only the departments on which the author dwells. First of all, the history of the issue and its literature are described in great detail, and the works on this issue are calculated up to Broca, Broca itself and following them until 1906.

By the highest order of 18 Oct. 1909 The intern of the Kazan Regional Hospital, Dr. V.S. Boldyrev, was appointed senior intern of the same Hospital.

We have received a petition from the Parents' Committee at the Yekaterinburg Men's Gymnasium to the Minister of Public Education to cancel the exams, the content of which is given in an abbreviated form. The Parents' Committee unconditionally denies the usefulness of exams and sees in them the cause of excessive nervous excitement among children, which entails not a better assimilation of the sciences they teach, but, on the contrary, a desire to take courses concisely, adapting only to the programs that are supposed to be for exams.

Real member N. A. Donskov demonstrated a patient with hysterical flatulence.

The patient has been suffering from hysteria for a long time; the intestinal disease arose later.

Prof. N. A. Mislavsky. At the heart of this disease is undoubtedly a painful state of the cerebral cortex, which results in atony of the intestines and an increase in the tone of the sphincters, which causes flatulence. The stomach is in the same conditions. The origin of this phenomenon is clear; nevertheless, the study of the stomach and intestines is very important; since the path of psychoreflexes may also be affected, as Prof. Pavlov pointed out.