Transient Cerebral Paralysis in Hypertension and in Cerebral Embolism

A variety of cerebral attacks occur in hypertension. In cerebral hemorrhage, consciousness is lost suddenly and is not usually regained before death ensues; when recovery does occur a permanent disability often remains. In thrombosis of a cerebral artery with massive infarction of the brain, consciousness is also suddenly lost, and when it is regained a hemiplegia, a hemianopia or other lesion usually remains. While the gross pathology of such cerebral attacks has been apparent since the early days of postmortem examination of the brain, there are others in which the disturbances in life are of much shorter duration and in which the appearance of the brain after death is less noticeably altered. These attacks, which are the subject of this paper, were at one time included in the symptom complex of uremia. They were first clearly distinguished from true uremia by Volhard,¹who termed them pseudouremia, and are now