Examination of the brain of a man who lived seven hours after receiving a shock of 20,000 volts / by F.W. Mott and Edgar Schuster.

  • Frederick Walker Mott
Date:
[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Examination of the brain of a man who lived seven hours after receiving a shock of 20,000 volts / by F.W. Mott and Edgar Schuster. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Examination of the Brain of a Man who Lived Seven Hours after Receiving a Shock of 20,000 volts.1 By F. W. Mott and Edgar Schuster. The material was sent to the Pathological Laboratory, Claybury, for examination by Sir Thomas Oliver on January 12, 1909. It con- sisted of a small piece of brain showing a small haemorrhage, the medulla oblongata, and portions of the spinal cord. The following notes accompanied the material, which was preserved in alcohol:— The notes which we have been able to obtain are extremely scanty. The patient was admitted to the Newcastle Infirmary, and the doctor who sent the case reported that the man had received a shock of 20,000 volts ; he lived seven hours after the injury. There were several burns, one large one over the occipital region laying bare the bone of the skull. The post-mortem examination was made thirty-nine hours after death. At the autopsy a haemorrhage was found in the occipital lobe. In addition to the cerebral haemorrhage there were petechial haemorrhages in the visceral pericardium, and the urine in the bladder was deeply blood-stained. The fluid in which the material came was deeply stained with blood. The portions of tissue were placed in alcohol, and subsequently in xylol, then embedded in paraffin, and sections cut upon the rocker microtome 5 fi in thickness. These were stained by the Nissl method and with polychrome and eosin. Microscopic examination of the sections showed the following histological changes which are represented in the accompanying drawings made by one of us (Edgar Schuster).