Railway pathology : case of Harris versus the Midland Railway Company / by John Charles Hall.

  • John Charles Hall
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Railway pathology : case of Harris versus the Midland Railway Company / by John Charles Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    the current removed, one would naturally have supposed, with such an asserted loss of muscular power, that the feet would again have fallen outward. They did not do so. The experiment repeated, a sharp cry indicative of pain proved the existence of sensation—I ought to say, the current applied was very weak. May we take it for granted that the excitation of contractions, when the induced magneto-electric cur- rent (Faradic) is passed through healthy muscle, as was the case here, proves that at any rate, to some degree, it was susceptible to the electric current, and possessed electro-muscular contractility, or irritability ; and that the cry of pain indicated electro-muscular sensibility ? There are many other points in this case that it is to be re- gretted for the present, from want of time, I must pass over. But to me, in any man it does appear in the highest possible degree unaccountable, that with an alleged paralytic condition of the lower extremities, there should continue to be enjoyed per- fect control over the bladder and rectum. The absence of all objective symptoms in all such cases is matter for the most grave and serious consideration before forming an opinion. When, there- fore, I am called to see a patient who has been in a collision on a railway, and who is seeking compensation, who has remained in bed for months apparently without the power of turning over or moving his lower limbs, in which it is stated he has lost sensation, who has a healthy aspect, no difference of temperature between the parts said to be paralysed and the rest of the body, perfect command over the rectum and bladder, pulse natural, temperature normal, no bed-sores, no marked lesion of nutrition, no flattening of the nates, no wasting of the calves of the legs; I venture to say, and that, too, without wishing in any way to dogmatise, that there is the total ab- sence of those objective symptoms which we expect to find, and do find, in injuries to the spine of a severe nature, in patients who have not recovered months after accidents of this nature. Let us hope, however, that the railway spine, if not already so, will soon become a thing of the past, and that the views I expressed in this Journal so long ago as in the year 1867, will be now generally ^held to be correct by the profession, confirmed as I am again by Mr. Erichsen, in his work On Concussion of the Spine and ATei vous Shock.
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