Bleeding Into the Throat While Unconscious

 

Ellen White states that her recovery from her accident was considered to be “very doubtful” due to loss of “so much blood.” 17 That this loss of blood must have been considerable is borne out by the fact that when she regained consciousness her “garments were covered with blood, which was pouring from [her] nose and streaming over the floor” and the fact that when she tried to walk, she “grew faint and dizzy” and had to be carried home by her sister and her schoolmate. 18

 

Physicians generally recognize that profuse bleeding into the throat, during even a brief period of unconsciousness, can result in pneumonia. For this reason one of the first concerns in the treatment of a patient with a head injury such as Ellen sustained is not the immediate effect of the head injury, but the maintaining of adequate respiration and preventing the aspiration of blood and secretions from the nose and throat into the bronchi and lungs. If these precautions are not taken, serious complications may occur. This was especially true in Ellen’s day before the discovery of antibiotics.

If, while she was unconscious, Ellen aspirated blood and secretions from her nose and throat (not an unlikely possibility, given the lack of adequate first aid knowledge in those days), she probably contracted pneumonia. Thus blood loss and pneumonia, not severe brain injury, is the more reasonable explanation of what she referred to as “my sickness.”

 

Tuberculosis was common in Ellen White’s day, and many people had an inactive form of this disease, which would flare up and become active pulmonary tuberculosis if some other illness or even some unusual stress occurred.

 

If Ellen had inactive tuberculosis at the time of her injury, blood loss and pneumonia could easily have developed into pulmonary tuberculosis. This would explain why she says that as a young woman her lungs were diseased 19 and why one physician diagnosed her as having “dropsical consumption” 20 —a nineteenth century term for tuberculosis.

 

Ellen White And Partial Complex Seizures

 

What Are Seizures?

 

A seizure or epileptic attack has been defined as an intermittent derangement of the nervous system, presumably due to a sudden and excessive disorderly electrical discharge by brain cells. 21 For practical purposes it can be said that epilepsy and seizure disorder are essentially synonymous, even though some prefer to give them slightly different definitions. But regardless of the cause, epilepsy or seizure disorder is an abnormality of brain function. On this all authorities agree.

 

Kinds of Epilepsy

 

One kind of seizure disorder is called a convulsion. This term usually refers to the type of attack that causes abnormal contractions and stiffness of voluntary muscles usually associated with loss of consciousness. This condition may also be called generalized tonic-clonic seizures, major motor seizures, or grand mal epilepsy.

 

Another kind of seizure consists of a sudden cessation of activity for a brief period with the individual being completely unaware of his surroundings. Unlike major motor seizures, this form of epilepsy is rarely associated with falling or abnormal movements. It usually lasts less than half a minute and has been called absence seizures, petit mal epilepsy, or generalized, nonconvulsive seizure disorder. This type of epilepsy rarely occurs in adults.

 

Partial Complex Seizures

 

In the older medical literature the term complex, when used in reference to seizures, sometimes denoted complex symptomatology. This usage is no longer accurate. In Its modern usage partial seizures that do not impair consciousness are called partial simple seizures. If consciousness is impaired, they are called partial complex seizures.

 

Partial complex seizure disorder is one of the more common types of epilepsy, and this is the type Hodder and Couperus allege Ellen White had. Temporal lobe epilepsy, or psychomotor seizures are older terms for this kind of attack. It should be pointed out, however, that these seizure types are not necessarily identical.

 

Partial complex seizure disorder consists of a temporary impairment of brain function. During the attack a person may exhibit automatic movements. These movements may seem to be purposeful, but they are usually inappropriate. This kind of epilepsy may also involve a trancelike state and various abnormalities of sensation and autonomic function. It is accompanied by impairment of consciousness, which is usually of brief duration.

 

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