| Abstract [eng] |
Vilnius with its University (VU) at the first half of the 19th century was a progressive city, a place where the natural sciences were supported and where new theories and explorations from the scientific centres of Western Europe reached not only scientists and medical professionals but also the general public. The aim of the present study was to reveal the perception, diagnosis, and treatment methods of nervous system (NS) diseases in the first half of the 19th century in Vilnius. Patients with apoplexy, encephalitis, arachnoiditis, myelitis, hydrophobia, tetanus, sleep disorders, St. Vitus‘ dance, acute and chronic hydrocephalus were examined and treated in VU Therapy clinic. Skull trepanations were performed, subdural and epidural hematomas were removed, ligation of the common carotid artery, and excision of the surface head tumours were completed in the VU Surgery clinic. Vilnius physicians and professors of clinical medicine evaluated patients’ pupillary light reflex, responses to painful stimuli, mental conditions, verbal responses, paroxysmal movements, some sensory modalities (e.g., touch, vision, audition, smell, taste), limb position, weakness of limb movements, dysfunction of the pelvic organs, and other signs and symptoms. The causes of neurological disorders were sought in the cerebrum and spinal cord, using autopsy findings as an essential part of the anatomo-clinical method. The side of limb paralysis was evaluated and trepanation was performed contralaterally to paralysis, evacuating epidural or subdural hematomas for the patients presenting with head trauma in Vilnius clinics, even though cerebral localization theory would be generally accepted not until the second half of the 19th century in Europe. |
