Original Papers: THE AFFECTIVE SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF DISSEMINATED SCLEROSIS.: A STUDY OF 100 CASES.

Abstract

DISSEMINATED sclerosis is a common nervouis disease, in England at least, and its study bas formed the subject of numerous volumes; monographs, articles and communications wbich have dealt with its many aspects, etiological, symptomatological, and pathological, yet we have for long been of the opinion that one of its sides, and that not the least important and significant, has not hitherto received that attention which it assuredly merits. Some reference to the psychical, emotional or affective symptoms of the disease is doubtless a textbook commonplace, and various communications in an enormous literature have been devoted to individual symptoms of the mental series it is not a little surprising, however, in view of the relative prominence of emotional abnormality in the affection, that this has never been submitted to adequate analysis. In scanning the literature we have often been disappointed with the way in which so significant a group of symptoms has been treated, one of the obvious reasons for which is, that the disease comes almost entirely under the purview of the neurologist, who may not develop the interest or possess the knowledge for such an investigation. Only bv collaboration on the part of the neurologist and the psychiatrist, as we believe, can this aspect of the subject be dealt with in a satisfactory manner.