Injuries of nerves and their consequences - Reflex Sympathetic ...

104 INJURIES OF NERVES.
also hard and brawnlike, resisting pressure. The fingers
were in the same state, and the whole hand was dark and
congested, but not shiny or smooth. The joints from the
wrist to the finger-ends were sore, swollen, and very
stifi'.
The whole palm was the seat of pretty severe burning,
with no darting or other paiti.
Sensation.— There was partial loss of touch- and painsense
in the median and radial distribution.
The arras were of the same size. The elbow motions,
but the latter was
pronation and supination, were perfect,
feeble. Wrist flexion was good, but limited by the joint
lesion. Extension of the wrist was lost from paralj'sis.
Power to flex the fingers was fair, but their movement
was somewhat impaired, owing to the diseased joints. All
extension power, and the lateral motions of the fingers,
were absent, from palsy of the extensors and of the interosseal
groups of muscles.
Electric condition.— The palsied muscles all
responded to
strong primary induced currents.
Injury of nerves from
—
fracture of hones. Contusion or
laceration of nerves from fracture of bones is fortunately
rare, and is most commonly encountered in such accidents
as involve the humerus and the bony parts forming the
elbow-joint. Similar accidents are met with in the forearm,
and fractures about the face involve also, though rarely,
the nerves which pierce its various foramina. In the legs,
owing to their larger mass of cushioning muscles, direct
injury from fracture is infrequent, but it is sometimes met
with in pelvic fracture through the sciatic notch.
Ferreol-Reuillet,* who has written a very full essay on
this subject, reports several cases of contusion or laceration
owing to fracture. In the Edinburgh 3Ied. and Surg.
Journal,'\' Granger has three cases of fracture of the inner
* Etude sur les Paralysies du 3Iembre superieur liees aux Fractures de
I'Humerus. Paris, 18G9.
t Vol. xiv. p. 196. 1818. f