LEAD-POISONING.
A specific form of paralysis of the lower extremities, consequent on the use of flour from the beans of the lathyrus &dims, is common in certain parts of India and in Thi bet. The ripe bean is an ordinary article of food when made into flour, but it is gener ally used with wheat or barley flour; it is only when it exceeds one-twelfth part that it is at all injurious, and when it exceeds one-third that the paralysis sets in. Oilier species of lathyrus have been known occasionally to induce similar symptoms in European countries.
We shall enter into no details regarding the treatment of and paraplegia. as the management of these serious affections should be exclusively restricted to the physician. When a patient has an attack of hemiplegia (pr a paralytic stroke) all that should be done before the physician arrives is to place him in It horizontal position, with the head slightly raised, and to remove any impediments presented by the dress to the free circulation of the blood. Should the physician not arrive in an .hour or two, it may be expedient to give the patient a sharp purge (half a scruple of calomel, followed in a few hours by a black draught, if he can swallow; and two drops of croton oil, mixed with a little melted butter, and placed on the'back of his tongue, if the power of deglutition is lost), and without wailing for its action, to administer an injection (or clyster) consisting of half an ounce of oilof turpentine suspended (by rubbing it with the yolk of an egg) in half a pint of thin gruel; and cold lotions may be applied to the head, especially if its surface be hot. The question of blood-letting—the universal treat ment a quarter of a century ago—must be left solely to the physician. It should, how ever, be generally known, that if the patient be cold and collapsed; if the heart's action be feeble and intermittent; if there be an anmmic state; if the patient be of advanced age; if there is evidence of extensive disease of the heart or arterial system; or lastly, if there is reason, from the symptons, to believe that a large amount of hemorrhage has already taken place in the brain; these singly, and a fortiori conjointly, are reasons why blood should not be abstracted.
Facial palsy, unless the seat of the disease be within the cavity of the cranium, will usually yield in the course of a few weeks to cupping and blistering behind the ear of the affected side, purgatives, and small doses of corrosive sublimate (one-twelfth of a grain three times a day, combined with a little of the compound ticture of bark), which must be stopped as soon as the gums arc at all affected. Exposure to cold air must be carefully avoided during treatment.
Little or nothing can be done to cure paralysis agitans. In the treatment of mercurial tremor, the first step is to remove the patient from the further operation of the poison, while the second is to the poison already absorbed into the system, which is effected by the administration of iodide of potassium. This salt, combines with the metallic poison in the system, and forms a soluble salt (a double iodide of mercury and potassium), which is eliminated through the kidneys. Good food and tonics (steel or quinia, or the two combined) should be at the same time freely given.
The writer of this article has ng.personal knowledge of the treatment that should be recommended in the paralysis produced by the use of lathyres satires, but cases are reported which seem to have been benefited by good diet, tonics, strychnia, and the application of blisters to the loins.