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

SYMPTOMATOLOGY OF NERVE LESIONS. , 145
behaved like an insane person. His character for courage
was undoubted, and a court of inquiry, for which he
asked, cleared him on the surgical evidence.
Case 19.—A private, shot through the brachial plexus,
became wildly excited, crying murder repeatedly, and
accusing those near him in the ranks of having shot him.
He did not fall.
Case 20.— An officer, shot through the right median
nerve, was helped away to the rear, talking somewhat
incoherently about matters foreign to the time and scene.
He was very feeble, but lost little blood, and had not the
least remembrance of having been shot, or of any event
which followed within an hour afterwards.
Such cases as these are examples of shock affecting
variously the emotional or intellectual organs. Legouest,
in his " Surgery of the Crimean War," p. 219, describes
them as not uncommon.
As I have had occasion to repeat, the shock of nerve
wounds commonly weakens the heart but in one case it
;
merely interfered with its rhythm.
Case 21.— G. A., a wagonmaster, was shot through the
left ulnar nerve. This trunk was totally destroyed, as
well as the ulnar artery, and years afterwards he consulted
me to learn whether the resultant loss of sense and motion
could be again restored. When struck, he felt a sharp
pang in the hand, and had at once great agitation of the
heart; at all events, this was so annoying as to be for some
days the dominant symptom. With occasional returns it
grew gradually better, and when seen by me he had long
ceased to feel it.
In the following cases a ball wound caused paralysis
elsewhere :
Case 22.— R. S. Ball wound of right neck, probably
involving no important nerve directly fracture of hyoid
;
bone ;
reflex paralysis of left arm ; probable reflex pa-