A MANUAL of NERVOUS DISEASES By IRVING J. SPEAR, M. D. Professor of Neurology at the University of Maryland, WITH 172 ILLUSTRATIONS PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY 1916 Copyright, 1916, by W. B. Saunders Company PRINTED IN AMERICA PRESS OF W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY PHILADELPHIA RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE PROFESSOR RANDOLPH WINSLOW, A. M., M. D., LL. D. 393710 PREFACE THE preparation of this volume for the present and for the future general practitioner has been undertaken in the hope that I have been able to embody in a book of moderate size the facts necessary for a proper understanding of the anatomy, the physiology, and the diseases of the nervous system. In my experience as teacher and consultant I have found that the student of medicine, as well as the general practitioner, regards the study of diseases of the nervous system as particularly difficult. This false impression I attribute to a lack of a proper understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, and of the correct methods of examining nervous patients. This lack of knowledge may be due in some measure to the fact that there is not at present available a moderately brief exposition limited to a description of the practical anatomy and physiology of the nervous system. Such a description, to be useful, must be neither too brief nor too voluminous, but should contain those facts and theories essential to a clear understanding of the mechanism of organic nervous diseases, and it is this deficiency that I have attempted to supply in the first part of this volume. No effort has been made completely to cover the subject of neurology, but I have endeavored to treat it with sufficient fulness to make a comprehension of the salient features of organic nervous diseases easily possible. This I hope further to have facilitated by the aid of illustrations and diagrams, some of which are original, whereas others have been taken from the various text-books on anatomy, physiology, neurology, and kindred subjects, to which due credit has been given. The method of examination laid down in this volume appears to me to be that best suited to the use of the general practitioner |