Observations placeholder
Hack Tuke, Daniel – Sickness - Trembling Palsy induced by powerful emotions – grief
Identifier
026081
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,
PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER VIII. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON THE VOLUNTARY MUSCLES.
SECTION II. — Irregular and Excessive Muscular Contraction : Spasms and Convulsions.
The patient, an advocate, had attended his wife assiduously for a twelvemonth before her death. Grief and sleepless nights had exhausted him. Such nervous irritability followed, that he could not bear to hear the ringing of bells, or the least noise. He soon observed that his arm seemed to shake slightly, and that the movements of the whole limb, but of the hand especially, became more and more difficult. In a short time the leg on the same side became affected also, and his symptoms grew worse, without being at all benefited by treatment. After a time he had to give up writing.
Trousseau remarks that the patient looked like a paralytic, but on examining him carefully, it was soon made clear that the paralysis was only apparent
(Trousseau's Clinical Medicine. Translated for the New Sydenham Society by Dr. Bazire. 4 vols. 1868, p. 442).