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

INTRODUCTORY. 11
that time somewhat novel— was habitually resorted to,
and its effects carefully studied.
The Surgeon-General and the hospital staff equally
felt that besides the benefit to the sick soldiers, in thus
aggregating cases alike in character, and therefore fitted
to produce the special experience so useful in their treatment,
this opportunity of study entailed upon us certain
obligations to the profession. The responsibility which
was involved in the possession of such rare experience
we endeavored conscientiously to meet. Careful notes
were taken by the surgeon or the resident of every case,
and were methodically continued until the time at which
the patient left us; while in many instances the utmost
care has been taken to collect, in the interval which has
elapsed since the war, such details of later history as were
needed to clear up or complete the story of symptoms or
prognosis.
The experience thus acquired during the war led to the
publication of a number of communications on various
subjects. One of these was a small volume on gunshot
wounds and injuries of nerves,* which has been long out
of print. I supplemented it, a year ago, by a paper on
" The Diseases of Nerves resulting from Injury," which
was published in the medical volume of the Reports of the
U. S. Sanitary Commission but as this volume is
; bulky
and costly, and as neither it nor the monograph before
mentioned at all cover the ground which I propose to occupy
in the following pages, I still feel that there is room
for my present work.
The study of the natural history of any
class of diseases
so constantly relates itself to the healthy workings of the
* Gunshot Wounds and other Injuries of Nerves, by S. Weir Mitchell,
M.D., Geo. E. Morehouse, M.D., and Wm. W. Keen,M.D. J. B Lippincott,
& Co., Philadelphia, 186-4, pp. 16-4.