Address delivered to the South-Western Branch of the British Medical Association at Redruth, June 29, 1881 / by William Mac Cormac.

  • Maccormac, William, Sir, 1836-1901.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered to the South-Western Branch of the British Medical Association at Redruth, June 29, 1881 / by William Mac Cormac. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    2G In all cases where a nerve is divided in a wound the immediate primary union of the two ends should be attempted as a matter of course, since, if the parts heal immediately, there is an excellent prospect of the nerve-ends reuniting also. The all but incredible rapidity with which sensation was restored in my own case, and which led to the man's veracity being put to the test by several observers, is not unique. Mr. Holden narrates an instance where the median nerve had been divided just above the wrist some months previously. He exposed the divided ends and sutured them together. In sixteen hours, it is stated, complete sensibility was restored to the hand. Mr. Treves, in publishing a most interesting case of his own of primary suture of the median nerve, records, though confessing some doubt as to its accuracy, a case described by Laugier in 1864, of primary suture of the median nerve, where sensation was restored to a considerable extent in twenty-four hours. Mine is the more extraordinary, in that so long an interval of total abeyance of function had previously subsisted. In relation to this question, the experiments on animals of Gluck (Virchow's Archiv) are worthy of study by all interested in the question. The closer and more accurate the apposition after division, the more complete will be the regeneration of the nerve tissue. Gluck found that where a sepa] ration of one to two centimetres existed between the ends of the divided ischiatic nerve, the interval