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

TREATMENT. 237
the most favorable circumstances, and where young animals
are used. I laid bare the sciatic nerve of a young
rabbit, and with a cataract needle divided the middle
fibres of the nerve. There w^as no bleeding, no retraction,
and the lips of the little wound thus made lay in
close apposition ; yet, on examining the distal end at the
close of six days, I found a large number of fibres undergoing
retrogressive changes.
In June, 1864, M. Houel reported to the Society of Surgery,
at Paris, the following case of Nelaton's, which I
quote, with some abridgment, from Tillaux :
"A female, aged twenty-four years, suffered from a
neuroma, situated at the internal and upper part of the left
arm, and involving the median nerve. After removing
the tumor, M. IN'elaton united the two ends of the divided
nerve by two metallic loops. It was then found that she
had lost the power to move the thumb and first and second
fingers, the other two retaining their motility. There was
no sensibility to touch in the median distribution, but the
sense of pain and that of temperature do not seem to have
been examined. On the third day she complained of pain
in the thumb, index-finger, and medius. She could now
bend slightly the first and second fingers, but could not
move the thumb. Sensibility to touch was unaltered on the
palmar face of these members. On their dorsal face sensibility
was absent in the two last phalanges, and preserved
in the first, while on the outside of the thumb it
was rather more distinct. The threads were removed,
and on the seventh day she could flex easily and rapidly
the three fingers to which the median passes, and could
bring the thumb into apposition with the first and second
fingers."
We learn nothing further as to the fuller return of seusibilitj'
in the parts concerned, while the mode of examination,
where noted at all, is said to have been by pass-