On rest and pain : a course of lectures on the influence of mechanical and physiological rest in the treatment of accidents and surgical diseases, and the diagnostic value of pain delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862 / by John Hilton ; edited by W.H.A. Jacobson.

Date:: 1877

Credit: On rest and pain : a course of lectures on the influence of mechanical and physiological rest in the treatment of accidents and surgical diseases, and the diagnostic value of pain delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in the years 1860, 1861, and 1862 / by John Hilton ; edited by W.H.A. Jacobson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$rr.] the interior of the skull ought to give a cast exactly cor- responding to the base of the brain. But we see that this is not so, and the great difference marks the extent of the interval occupied by the cerebro-spinal fluid. We have here a complete demonstration that there is not a coapta- tion or exact fitting between the under surface, or base of the brain, and those bones which form the base of the skull. This sustains the opinion, that the two posterior Fig. 5. a, Cut extremity of medulla. Immediately in frort of this is the large space occupied by cerebro-spinal fluid, b b, Under surface of cerebellum, c c, Middle lobes, d d, Anterior lobes. thirds of the base of the brain do not rest upon the bones, indeed do not touch the bones at all, but rest upon this collection of cerebro-spinal fluid, wliich I have ventured to call the perfect water-bed of the brain. Hence a person may fracture the base of the skull, and yet show no evidence of injury to the brain itself; a fact which every observing surgeon knows to be true. I well remember a$

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