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

200 INJURIES OF NERVES.
sergeant 26th Pennsylvania Volunteers, was shot at Chan-
below the knee. lie fell
cellorsville, through the leg,
without pain lost blood
; largely; and, after lying on the
field twenty-six hours, had a water-dressing applied, at
about which time the heel began to burn. A few days
later, the limb being swollen considerably, the whole foot
was burning and prickling intensely,
— the sole being the
worst part.
After two weeks the prickling lessened, but
the burning remained.
He was wounded in May, 1863, and admitted to the
U.S.A. Hospital for Nervous Diseases, June 30, 1863,
when he had no loss of motion, and scarcely any of sensation,
only the great-toe and heel being not quite up to
the normal standard of sensibility. The heel and the
inner edge of the plantar arch burn intensely, and are
dark-red and mottled, and swollen from congestion, which
the dependent position greatly increases.
Pressure upon
the cicatrix appears to increase the burning. He had,
soon after admission, crutch palsy, which readily yielded
to treatment. The burning pain slowly lessened without
any therapeutic aid, and within four months of the date
of the wounding he was well, excepting some tenderness
and slight oedema of the foot.
In the following case there were both burning pain and
common neuralgic pain, and the mental condition produced
by intense suffering was well marked :
Case 83.— Wound of right arm; glossy skin; causalgia
and neuralgia ; joint disease ; acid siceats ; slight loss of tact ;
constitutio7ial symptoms. PI., aged thirty-nine. New York,
was shot July 2, 1863, through the inner edge of the
right biceps, half an inch above the internal condyle of
the humerus; the ball passed backward and downward.
1'he musket fell from his left hand, and the right, grasping
the rod, was twisted towards the chest and bent at the
elbow. He walked to the rear. He cannot tell how much