Charcot-Blocq's Symptom Complex

You see in front of you a patient who has just recently entered the nervous department of the Pokrovskaya hospital. Our information about her, especially concerning her past life, is still very scarce. However, I do not allow myself to stop your attention on her today, since the patient presents a rather curious complex of symptoms, in the strength of which I have some reason to doubt: about two months ago she lost the ability to walk, stand and even sit and, although in her condition the patient has recently undergone a dramatic improvement, such a feature still catches the eye. Indeed, if we put the patient down, we will easily notice that she sways from side to side, tries to hold onto the edge of the bed with her hands, and nevertheless, after a few minutes, falls on the pillows. When put on her feet, the patient maintains an upright position only with the help of two seats; if she is left alone, her knees immediately bend and she sinks to the floor; walk, even with outside support, she can do it with great difficulty and extremely slowly. Take a look at what character they differ in this movement. In the beginning of each contraction of the muscles of the right leg, some difficulty is suppressed, which, however, is then smoothed out; if the patient is forced to repeat the same movements, then a similar feature is observed only at the first, although the subsequent ones continue to bear the imprint of uncertainty, inaccuracies, are performed as if by jerks. The same phenomena exist in the muscles of the left leg, only here they are expressed in an even greater degree.