POST-DIARRHŒAL ACUTE ATAXIA.

Abstract

Dr. Henry J. Berkley, in the<i>Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin</i>, February, gives an instructive case of pseudo-tabes following an attack of diarrhœa. This is probably the first recorded case of its kind, and affords room for possible differences of opinion as to etiology; the argument ofDr. Berkley, however, is well sustained, and worthy of being weighed by his co-laborers. The term " acute ataxia" has been employed byProfessor Leyden, of Berlin, in<i>Zeitschrift für klinische Medicin</i>, 1891, to describe certain cases of suddenly beginning ataxia of movement; first, the cerebral variety, characterized by disturbances of speech and psychical symptoms in addition to the ataxic phenomena; and second, the sensible, marked by the presence of various anæsthesias and paræsthesias, without psychical complication. With both these types there may be paralyses, or they may be absent in both. Following certain of the infectious diseases, notably typhus fever and diphtheria, there may