Book 1
7
Apoplexy, Paraplegia, Paresis, Paralysis, are all generically the same. For they are all a defect of motion, or of touch, or of both; sometimes also of understanding, and sometimes of other sense. But apoplexy is a paralysis of the whole body, of sensation, of understanding and of motion; wherefore to get rid of a strong attack of apoplexy is impossible, and of a weak, not easy. But paraplegia is a remission of touch and motion, but of a part, either of the hand or of the leg. Paralysis for the most part is the remission (paresis) of motion only, and of energy.It is difficult to find an appropriate word either in the Latin or English for the term πάρεσις. It would seem to be particularly applied to a partial loss either of sensibility or of motion. Alexander, however, makes little or no distinction between it and paralysis, x. 2. But if the touch alone is wanting—(but such a case is rare)—the disease is called Anæsthesia rather than paresis. And when Hippocrates says, the leg on the same side was apoplectic, he means to say that it was in a death-like, useless, and incurable state; for what is strong apoplexy in the whole body, that he calls paraplegia in the limb. Paresis, properly speaking, is applied to suppression or incontinence of urine in the bladder. But distortion of the eye-brows, and of the cheeks, and of the muscles about the jaws and chin to the other side, if attended with spasm, has got the appellation of Cynic spasm. Loss of tone in the knees, and of sensibility for a time, with torpor, fainting, and collapse, we call lipothymia.
