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

10 INJURIES OF NERVES.
This hospital promised very early to surpass in usefulness
the fondest expectations of its founder and of the
staif, to which, at my request, Dr. ^Y. W. Keen was added,
as resident surgeon.
It was finally enlarged to 400 beds, and removed
from Christian Street, Phihidelphia, to Turner's Lane,
in the suburbs of the city, where, for the first time, its
in distinct wards the
capacity enabled us to classify
numerous cases which fell under our care. Xever has
such an opportunity for the study of nerve lesions and
their results presented itself. A multitude of cases, representing
almost every couQeivable type of obscure
nervous disease, was sent to us from this department
and that of Washington, by surgeons who felt conscious
that these forms of disease were rarely amenable
to treatment in wards crowded with grave wounds,
constantly demanding
all the time and care of overworked
attendants. The medical inspectors, and especially
Dr. John Le Conte, were active in selecting and
forwarding such instances of disease as seemed to them
suited to our service : so that we received and treated
during two years an enormous number of cases of diseases
and injuries of the nervous system.
these was a vast collection of wounds and
Among
contusions of nerves, including
all the rarest forms of
nerve lesion of almost every great nerve in the human
body.
!N"or was this mass of material neglected in any
point of view. Xew modes of treatment were devised,
and gj-mnastic classes instituted, under the care of intelligent
sergeants of the invalid corps ; electricity was
constantly employed, and hypodermic medication — at
^—^
diseases of the heart and lungs, and was maturing a plan for the further
extension of this system, with such arrangements as must have resulted
in vast advantages to scientific medicine and surgery.