(1) Small glioma in left hemisphere of cerebellum, and (2) a similar tumor projecting from left lateral half of floor of fourth ventricle at common nucleus of the abducens and facial nerves.6
6 W. H. Broadbent, Proc. Clin. Soc. Lond., v. 66-68.
F. 45.—Epileptiform attacks for fourteen years. Vertigo, occipital headache, disordered vision, intolerance of light, sleeplessness, excitability, constipation, with paræsthesia of left side. Retraction of head, vomiting. Very late, convulsive movements of right eye and right side of mouth; then general clonic spasms, coma, and death. No paralysis. For twenty-six years there had been an induration of one breast, which toward end of life had a somewhat scirrhous appearance.
(1) Glioma in right hemisphere of cerebellum 1¾ inches in diameter. (2) Glioma in centre of middle lobe of left hemisphere of the cerebrum ¾ inch in diameter. Surrounding nervous tissue softened and broken down.7
7 William L. Bradley, Tr. Conn. Med. Soc., 1880, p. 39.
M. 65.—Sudden attack of spasm of left arm, with paresis and coldness and numbness. Headache and staggering. Wandering in mind. Not unconscious. Twitching in eye. Two days later violent convulsion in entire left half of body, with vomiting; not unconscious. After convulsion left hemiplegia, with left deviation of tongue. Head and eyes turned to right; vertigo. Partial anæsthesia of left face, body, and limbs. Paræsthesia; painful nervous shocks through affected limbs. Sounds in back of head. Later, mind cleared up and many symptoms ameliorated. Very late, convulsion and coma. Cheyne-Stokes respiration, involuntary evacuations. Duration, seven weeks.
(1) Tumor in ascending parietal convolution at junction of upper and middle thirds. (2) Large tumor occupied entire occipital lobe, but did not present on surface, reaching to convexity of descending cornu of lateral ventricle.8
8 W. H. Broadbent, Tr. Clin. Soc. Lond., v. 233-236.
Headache is the most frequent and positive symptom of brain tumor. It is rarely absent; in most cases it has peculiar characteristics. Its usual type might be described as continuous pain, sometimes of persistent severity, but generally with exacerbations or paroxysms of great violence. No suffering can surpass that which some of the victims of intracranial neoplasms are compelled for months or years to endure. It is only equalled by the torture produced by malignant growths in the vertebral axis, the throat, or the bones of the pelvis. The pain is not, however, always of this character. In a comparatively few cases it is described by the patient as dull or moderate, or he simply complains of distressing sensations of weight, pressure, or constriction. Usually in these cases, however, the pain increases and becomes less and less endurable. In 100 cases the headache is described as agonizing, violent, severe, or torturing 20 times; as moderate or dull, 26 times. It is simply mentioned 20 times, but here presumably it was of the ordinary severe type. Thus in 66 cases, or 66 per cent., headache of some type was recorded. No mention was made of headache at all in 29 cases, in some of which, however, it was doubtless present. In only 5 cases was it stated not to have been present: 3 out of these 5 were said to be gliomata, and of the other 2, one was probably gliomatous, and the other a cyst in the brain-substance. Tumors of this kind, which exert comparatively little pressure and which are not connected with the membranes, are probably those which are least likely to cause pain. In several instances the patients complained spontaneously of the pain being greatest in the region of the head nearest the seat of growth. With reference to cerebellar tumors, it somewhat generally supposed that occipital pain is usually present. It sometimes is and sometimes is not. In 15 cases of tumor of the cerebellum and of the fourth ventricle the pain was described as occipital twice, as fronto-occipital three times, and as cervico-occipital once. Callender has noticed that cortical lesions are more frequently accompanied by localized pains than lesions of deeper parts.9 Some of our cases would seem to bear out this view, although the data are not numerous or complete.
9 St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, 1869, and Ferrier's Localization of Cerebral Disease, p. 99.