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

130 INJURIES OF NERVES.
and those of the thumb, occasioned in both instances by
pressure on the niusculo-spiral nerve.
The most remarkable case within my knowledge was
that of a laborer, who fell asleep in the street on a doorstep,
after drinking heavily. There were marks of bruises
on the back or outside of both arms, as if he had slept
with the two limbs crossed under and behind his head.
In fact, he was found by the police resting with one
arm on the edge of the iron foot-scraper and the other on
that of the step. He was so nearly poisoned by the alcohol
taken as barely to escape death. On the second day
he was found to have wrist-drop in both hands.
A few weeks after, he came under my care, having been
treated meanwhile for lead palsy, of which he had, however,
no evidence, save the extensor pals3\
He recovered
after very prolonged treatment by faradisation.
M. Bachon reports two cases of palsy of the radial caused
by pressure during sleep, or in drunkenness. In both the
arm rested on the back of a chair and the head on the
arm. Mr. Walter G. Smith* has published a case of wristdrop
and ana3Sthesia from sleeping on the arm, the man
being drunk at the time. In his second history a like result
followed a healthy sleep, with the hand resting on
the arm.
His third case seems to have been due to long
pressure of the elbow on the nerves of the opposite palm,
and afl'ected the median nerve chiefly.
Some persons seem to suffer more, and more readilj^,
than others from light pressure on nerves or malposition.
This is the case, I believe, with anaemic people and those
in feeble health from any cause, but especially is it notably
80 in such as are in the first stages of spinal palsies or
locomotor ataxia.
Some of the remaining external causes of paralj'sis of
* The Dublin Quarterly Journal, Aug. 1870, p. 21.