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

240 INJURIES OF NERVES.
mortem examination proved that there
had been no reunion,
yet during this period the sensibility in the area
supplied by this nerve remained unaltered and entire.
Pirogoft"* relates a case in which he divided a softened
ulnar nerve during a resection, and found immediately
afterwards, and at a later date, perfect feeling in the third
and fourth lingers. He quotes,t also, Naudorfer and
8chuh to like effect. I)r. ISrott:}:
adds to our list of sections
without disturbance of function the following history:
Case 41.— M. Wysinger, aged lifty, of robust constitution,
consulted Dr. N". for a tumor on the forearm, which,
although existing for fifteen years, had given no inconvenience
until three months before, when it caused pain
and partial contraction of the third and fourth fingers.
The tumor was as large as a cocoanut, and extended
from an inch below the elbow to within an inch of the
wrist. This mass turned out to be a huo;e sac full of
grumous blood, and was traversed on its exterior by the
flattened fibres of the median nerve. The tumor was
removed, and with \tjive inches of the median nerve; but
the functions usually assigned to this trunk were not interfered
with in the slightest degree,
— "neither paralysis
nor loss of motion" ensuing. The neuralgia disappeared,
and at no time afterwards was there any disturbance of
function. Perhaps this is the most remarkable of all of
these singular histories, and it is much to be regretted
that its reporter should not have given more ample details
as to the precise sensory and motor conditions.
The general evidence as to the immediate and continued
loss of function when nerves are cut, is so strong
that even if we admit the cases of exception as correctly
* Pirogoff", Military Surgery, p. 377.
t Ibid., p. 30.
X Bone and Nerve Surgery, Appendix.