Railway injuries : with special reference to those of the back and nervous system, in their medico-legal and clinical aspects / by Herbert W. Page.

  • Page, Herbert W.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Railway injuries : with special reference to those of the back and nervous system, in their medico-legal and clinical aspects / by Herbert W. Page. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    137/168
    doctor's house to see the patient. Having told his opinion, the doctor pointed out the utter impossibility, in his belief, of so grave a symptom being voluntary, and took him into his own yard to show how the man had vomited since he came to his house not long before. The surgeon's opinion, nevertheless, remained unchanged, and the result of the case justified and con- firmed it. Infirm of body and mind, incapable of work, vomiting up to the day of his action for damages, the man immediately recovered when litigation was over. In the case of a horse-dealer who rapidly wasted and became extremely ill, and in whom the most prominent symptom was sweating, the man subsequently acknowledged, when his speedy recovery after compensation excited his doctor's surprise, that he had deliberately sweated himself by violent exercise in thick cloth- ing in order to reduce his weight and size. To those who have never seen such cases it may appear almost incredible that symptoms like these can be volitional and unreal.1 Take, however, into consideration every circumstance and feature of the case; learn what has been the original injury; recognise how singular it is that a symptom, alarming in itself, should be by itself independent, and without ill result; remember how powerful is the motive for deception; inquire what steps the patient is taking to gain the desired end, and there are the means, if you will only use them, of arriving at a right diagnosis. 13. The character of the original accident and injury is far too Imp often forgotten in the later examination of these cases, and a com trifling bump is magnified into a serious collision. f*r]: hist( Case 34.—Slight injury—Gross exaggeration—Rapid recovery after settlement—A man received an altogether trivial blow on his side, from the manner in which he happened to be sitting, when the train attached a carriage at a station, and the so-called accident ultimately became a severe collision, in which the train had been backed into a carriage at the great speed acquired in a run of half a mile, with a crash like thunder. This was the story upon which those were asked to form an opinion who were called in to see him, when, after several months, he had nursed himself into a condition of much weakness, nervousness, and malaise, and when his very obvious illness seemed almost to « Some remarkable instances of factitious vomiting are recorded by Gavin, op cit p. 256, et seq. J ' e >