Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / By John Abercrombie.
- John Abercrombie
- Date:
- 1836
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Pathological and practical researches on diseases of the brain and the spinal cord / By John Abercrombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
450/488 page 426
![To affections of the nerves may probably be referred certain obscure and severe disorders of a nervous kind, some of which have supervened upon slight injuries, and others have come on without any obvious cause. A young lady mentioned by M. Verpinet,* received a shght wound with the point of a sword on the inferior and outer part of the fore-arm. It very soon healed, but most violent pain continued in the fore-arm, wrist, and hand, accompanied by convulsive motions of the arm, and loss of the voluntary power of the wrist and fingers. The affection resisted every mode of treat- ment for two years, and then got speedily well after the application of the actual cautery to the cicatrix of the original wound. Ina lady, mentioned by Mr. Swan,t a slight wound on the thumb was followed by numb- ness, pain, convulsive motions of the arm, and spasms, which occasionally affected the opposite arm, and some- times the whole body. In this case the affection seem- ed gradually to wear itself out, though she was not en- tirely free from uneasiness at the end of seven years. A very violent case of the same kind, described by Mr. Wardrop,} was cured after twelve months by amputa- tion of the finger. In a similar case by Larry, which followed a wound, a portion of the nerve was removed, without complete success, though the disease was very much alleviated. In a singular case by Sir Everard Home,§ a gentleman received a violent sprain of his thumb, by the weight of his body being thrown upon it, in saving himself when nearly thrown off, by a sud- den motion of his horse. He was afterwards liable to paroxysms, in which his thumb was first bent in to- wards the palm of his hand ; a spasm then took place in the muscles of the arm, after which he became in- sensible, and continued so for about a quarter of an * Jour. de Med. vol. x. + Swan on Local A ffections of Nerves, + Med. Chir. Trans. vol. viii. § Phil. Trans. 1801],](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33278489_0450.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
