BRAIN, DISEASES OF THE. These consist of disturbances of the circulation: inflammations following infection, injury, etc.; hemorrhages, degenerations, scleroses, softening, malforma tions, and disorders called functional because no anatomical lesion is found after death that is regarded as due to the disorder or causative of it. A few of the common diseases of the brain will be considered. and hypera-mia of the brain are conditions, rather than diseases, and are considered here for convenience' sake. In the latter there is an excessive amount of blood in the cranial cavity, in the former there is too small an amount of blood in the vessels of the brain. Amemia may be due to arterial disease, kidney disease, syphilis, wasting diseases, hemor rhages, faulty digestion, or fright. Its symptoms arc faintness, vertigo, confusion of mind, and nausea. Ilypertemia is caused by the use of alcoholic beverages, by injury, sunstroke. pro longed mental overwork or worry, or by obstruc tion to the return of blood from the brain. The symptoms are headache, vertigo, insomnia, ring ing in the ears, confusion of ideas or inability for mental application. These conditions require careful expert treatment. Abscess of the brain is an acute suppurative inflammation of a small part of the brain-substance, with a production of pus. It is caused by infection by pus-germs flout middle ear or mastoid disease, by an injury, by the presence of a tumor of the brain, or by infectious diseases, such as diphtheria, typhoid fever, smallpox, hi grippe. etc. Paralysis gener ally occurs, with headache, vomiting, and de lirium. Trephining is the only treatment. 'Soft ening of the brain' is the common (erroneous) term for any form of mental disease in which there is failure of mental power; and especially for general paralysis of the brain, in which in reality a hardening occurs. True softening fol lows embolism (q.v.) or thrombosis (q.v.). in which the blood-supply is cut off from a part of the brain, which generally becomes red or yel low, dies and softens, and may be absorbed or may go on to the production of abscess. Soften
ing causes marked mental changes resembling those of dementia, and sometimes pa raly sis. Brain-palsies of children are either paralysis of one side of the body. or of both sides of the body, or of both lower extremities. The lesions are in the upper motor segments of the hemi spheres of the brain, and are due to injuries or disease of the mother during pregnancy, injury of the child during birth. or injuries or infect tious fevers in very early childhood. Wasting of the paralyzed limbs occurs as the children grow, with the production of contracted muscles, clenched hands or club feet. Brain fever is a popular and erroneous term which is generally applied to meningitis, though used for other af fections and conditions without intelligence. Inflammation of the brain is also an erroneous term, signifying usually abscess of the brain, or necrosis and microbiosis due to injury and in fection, or even meningitis. Tumors may he either tubercle, syphiloma, glioma or sarcoma, or other less common forms, as all varieties of new growths may be found in the brain. They are all rare. They generally cause intense and constant headache, vomiting, with or without nausea, ver I shops, and a hospital for its employ()s. The city contains also a lumbermen's hospital, a Unit ed States signal station, fine courthouse and V. M. C. A. buildings, a public park, and athletic grounds. A dam across the Mississippi furnishes water-power for various manufactures. There are extensive lumber-mills, ell:lair-factories, large foundry and machine shops. fiour-i nills. brewery. etc. The city is important as the commercial centre for the adjacent region, the export trade consisting largely of lumber, grain, agricultural produce, furs, etc. chartered in 1883 as a city, is governed by a mayor, elected every two years, and a city council. Population. in 1890, 5703: in 1900, 7,524.