Motion sickness

“ The muscular motions that are generally subservient to volition, are also occasionally causable by irritation, as in stretching the limbs after sleep, and yawning. In this manner a contraction of the arm is produced by passing the electric fluid from the Leyden phial along its muscles; and that even though the limb is paralytic. The sudden motion of the arm produces a disagreeable sensation in the joint, but the muscles seem to be brought into action simply by irritation. ”

“ Many instances have been given in this work, where after violent motions excited by irritation, the organ has become quiescent to less, and even to the great irritation, which induced it into violent motion; as after looking long at the sun or any bright colour, they cease to be seen; and after removing from bright day-light into a gloomy room, the eye cannot at first perceive the objects, which stimulate it less. ”

“ Recovery is gradual, and as the abnormal movements cease the mental condition improves, and the patient regains his health without any traces of the disease remaining.
We will now consider some of the symptoms separately. First, as to disturbances of motion. As before remarked, the disorderly movements occur soon after the general restlessness is seen. They most commonly begin in one upper extremity. The hand is thrown into various positions, the fingers are flexed and extended or separated, and all of the movements occur with great rapidity. ”

“ In this vertigo the irritative ideas of the apparent motions of objects are less distinct, and on that account are not succeeded by their usual irritative associations of motion; but excite our attention. Whence the objects appear to librate or circulate according to the motions of our heads, which is called dizziness; and we lose the means of balancing ourselves, or preserving our perpendicularity, by vision. ”

“ Prolonged and excessive nervous action is attended with too great a rush of blood to the nerve-centers, which can [pg 917] only be relieved by increasing the flow in the muscles. Congestion, or hyperæmia, in the spinal cord or brain, or both, is a condition ever present in neuralgia. The application of motion through the manipulator causes the blood to flow to the muscles, thus relieving nervous congestion and consequent neuralgia.
CURE OF PARALYSIS.
In no single disease has the transmission of motion through the Manipulator proved more thoroughly efficacious than in paralysis. ”

“ It seems, also, that the continued descent of vibrations, from the brain, and spinal marrow, into the limbs, and external parts, agitates them so much, as to render them unfit for receiving sensation and motion, in the same manner as continued friction of the head, when newly shaved, or shaking the hand, occasion a kind of numbness in the head and hand respectively. For a disorder raised in the motory nerves and muscular fibres, analogous to numbness in the sensory nerves, and sentient papillæ, must produce ineptitude to motion. ”

“ Stage of Ataxia (Disturbance of motion) .—The disturbance of motion (ataxia) is very marked, especially in the lower extremities; the walking becomes difficult and uncertain; there is difficulty in rising or rapid turning; the legs are wide apart; feet lifted too high and come down too forcibly; the length of the steps is irregular, and the body is imperfectly balanced. If the patient stands with his feet together and eyes closed he begins to sway, (Romberg's symptom) , which is due to a defect in controlling the muscles from impairment of sensation. ”

“ Every violent motion communicated to the black blood, and independent of gravity, can also disturb the course of this fluid; it is thus that when we move violently in a circular direction, the venous cerebral blood receives, if we may so say, a centrifugal motion, which, turning it from its natural direction, and preventing it from going entirely to the heart, produces a stoppage of it, and hence the dizziness that is experienced. ”

“ Not only is vibratory motion as a remedial agent rational and philosophical, but our experience has fully demonstrated its marvelous effects in the treatment of paralysis in its various forms, and also in the cure of other chronic diseases. We have cured cases of infantile paralysis which had resisted the skill of the most renowned physicians in our country. We have treated those who could not stand or bear the weight of the body, but who have been so far restored as to be able to walk and run without assistance. ”

“ The muscles or organs of motion, when affected with spasms or convulsions from an irritating cause, are assuredly moved no otherwise than the decapitated cock or hen, which is agitated with many convulsive movements of its legs and wings, but all confused and without a purpose, because the controlling power of the brain has been taken away:—common sensation has disappeared, under the controlling influence of which these motions were formerly coordinated to progression by walking or to flight. ”

“ It is not, as is usually supposed, an affection of the muscles, but of the nerves that control the muscular movements. Sometimes one entire side of the body becomes affected and completely deprived of voluntary motion. Congestion of the brain is a preliminary of paralysis, and congestion of the brain are invariably due to an enlarged transverse colon.
One form of paralysis affects only certain parts of the body, such. as the lower limbs, or the reproductive organs, and is caused by pressure upon some large nerve communicating with the paralyzed portion. ”

“ If this is continued for a long time, the nerves of sensation lose their strength from over-action, and the nerves of motion lose their power from inactivity. In consequence, there is a morbid excitability of the nervous, and a debility of the muscular system, which make all exertion irksome and wearisome. ”

“ Now gait and movement of the arms are mainly functions of the brain; our limbs receive their motion and every little modification of it from the brain through the medium of the spine.
This is why conscious movements fatigue us: the sensation of fatigue, like that of pain, has its seat in the brain, not, as people commonly suppose, in the limbs themselves; hence motion induces sleep. ”

“ For as the pains from excess of motion either gradually subside, or are in general succeeded by inflammation; so those from defect of motion either gradually subside, or are in general succeeded by convulsion, or madness. ”

“ And when he was electrified by passing shocks from the affected hand to the affected foot, a motion of the paralytic limbs was also produced. Now as in the act of yawning the muscles of the paralytic limbs were excited into action by the stimulus of the irksomeness of a continued posture, and not by any additional quantity of the spirit of life; so we may conclude, that the passage of the electric fluid, which produced a similar effect, acted only as a stimulus, and not by supplying any addition of sensorial power. ”

“ Several of the forms of paralysis have each its significant gait. For instance, if a patient comes in with a firm, rather precise, calculated sort of gait, "clumping" each foot upon the floor as if he had struck it an inch sooner than he had expected, and clamping it there firmly for a moment before he lifts it again, as though he were walking on ice, with more knee action than seems necessary, you would have a strong suspicion that you had to deal with a case of locomotor ataxia, in which loss of sensation in the soles of the feet is one of the earliest symptoms. ”

“ The loss of motion, or of the power of moving parts of the body, is either perfect or imperfect according to the degree of injury which has been inflicted, varying from a sense of feebleness to an almost utter incapability of moving the part. It is accompanied in general by defective sensation, or numbness, or by the complete loss of sensation and of the power of resisting heat and cold; the whole side, or one extremity, or a part only of an extremity may be affected, and not the whole. ”

“ A well marked case of a disease approximating to the original Dancing Mania, is related by Mr. Kinder Wood, in the 7th volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, p. 237. The patient, a young married woman, is described to have suffered from headache and sickness, together with involuntary motions of the eyelids, and most extraordinary contortions of the trunk and extremities, for several days, when the more remarkable symptoms began to manifest themselves, which are thus recorded:—
“February 26. Slight motions of the limbs came on in bed. ”

“ When one hemisphere is removed or destroyed by disease, motion and sensation are abolished unilaterally, but mental operations are still capable of being carried on in their completeness through the agency of the one hemisphere. The individual who is paralysed as to sensation and motion by disease of the opposite side [27] of the brain (say the right) , is not paralysed mentally, for he can still feel and will and think, and intelligently comprehend with the one hemisphere. ”

“ The supervention of motion is a supernumerary phenomenon depending on executive ganglia whose function lies outside the mind. If the ganglia work duly, the act occurs perfectly. If they work, but work wrongly, we have St. Vitus's dance, locomotor ataxy, motor aphasia, or minor degrees of awkwardness. If they don't work at all, the act fails altogether, and we say the man is paralyzed. He may make a tremendous effort, and contract the other muscles of the body, but the paralyzed limb fails to move. ”

“ All that such oscillations do, if continued, is to produce a temporary paralysis or fatigue of the nerve, so that it is unable to transmit the nerve impulses evoked by other stimuli, from which paralysis it recovers readily enough in course of time. ”

“ Vibratory Motion not only establishes activity of the circulation through the skin and muscles, but it also affects profoundly the circulation in the important and vital organs of the body; it is thus capable of overcoming torpidity or congestion of the liver, spleen, and other deep-seated organs, without the depressing effects which sometimes follow the administration of powerful medicines. ”

“ In some cases there is a continual nodding movement of the head. These tremors are at the rate of five per second and cease during sleep. The attitude and gait are very characteristic; the head is bent forward, and the patient in beginning to walk takes slow steps, which soon become short and quick as if he were running after his centre of gravity. The intellect is clear and in marked contrast to the mask-like expression. This disease lasts for years, and but little can be done in the way of treatment, except passive movements of the limb to prevent contracture. ”

“ Whenever one starts to walk or to perform any of the other acts of locomotion, nervous disturbances will be set up in great quantity from the organs of muscle and joint sense in the parts of the body that are active, and also from the organs of equilibrium in the ear. It is necessary that the whole volume of nervous disturbance that is pouring into the central nervous system from these sources be translated into a series of streams of disturbances passing out over the motor nerves to cause the muscles to work just as they should in performing the act. ”

“ In this case the great exertion of some small part in consequence of great irritation or sensation exhausts the whole sensorial power, which was lodged in the extremities of the locomotive nerves, for a short time, as in syncope; and as soon as these muscles are again supplied, convulsions supervene to relieve the painful sensation. ”

“ In learning to walk we judge of the distances of the objects, which we approach, by the eye; and by observing their perpendicularity determine our own. This circumstance not having been attended to by the writers on vision, the disease called vertigo or dizziness has been little understood.
When any person loses the power of muscular action, whether he is erect or in a sitting posture, he sinks down upon the ground; as is seen in fainting fits, and other instances of great debility. Hence it follows, that some exertion of muscular power is necessary to preserve our perpendicular attitude. ”

“ One of the most marked effects is the suspension of locomotion of the legs and arms, and the direct loss of will power which must supervene before voluntary muscular inactivity, which amounts to partial paralysis in the hands or feet, or peripheral extremities of the same. ”

“ Innumerable trains or tribes of other motions are associated with these muscular motions which are excited by irritation; as by the stimulus of the blood in the right chamber of the heart, the lungs are induced to expand themselves; and the pectoral and intercostal muscles, and the diaphragm, act at the same time by their associations with them. And when the pharinx is irritated by agreeable food, the muscles of deglutition are brought into action by association. Thus when a greater light falls on the eye, the iris is brought into action without our attention ”

“ In the accomplishment of the conditions of life, motion has become to them an indispensable function. The necessity for the ability to direct the locomotory movements in the avoidance of danger and the attainment of food and comfort has led to the development of irritability into the forms of sensorial action. ”

“ A slighter degree of this disease is experienced by every one after great fatigue, when the muscles gain such inability to further action, that we are obliged to rest them for a while, or to summon a greater power of volition to continue their motions.
In all the syncopes, which I have seen induced after convulsive fits, the pulse has continued natural, though the organs of sense, as well as the locomotive muscles, have ceased to perform their functions ”