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

THEATMEXT. 299
and applied to Surgeon Bliss, U. S. Y., then in charge of
Armory Square Hospital, for relief. He was directed to
use the electrical bath, which he did for four or five days
without any apparent effect. The pain at this time was
constant and excruciating, and confined chiefly to the
palm of the hand while the
;
sensation was as if grasping
a ball of red-hot iron. He demanded an operation, which
was performed by Surgeon Bliss (about July 5, 1864), who
cut down through the wound of exit, and {so
the patient
luas told)
removed three inches of the median nerve.
"For two days after the operation the pain was very
slifjMy less, but when the wound began to heal assumed
its former intensity.
*'Mr. Swann had commenced the use of morphia
hypodermically, about two weeks before this operation,
and resumed it two days afterwards. From the first it
required from three to five grains a day to relieve pain,
and he continued to increase the quantity gradually up to
the time of the second operation, until he very generally
injected ten grains a day, and has used as much as one
drachn in three days. Both arms are covered with the
punctures of the syringe, discolored, and the cellular tissue
indurated,
" Mr. Swann consulted me in June, 1865, when I advised
another operation; but he did not submit to it on account
of being told by several physicians here and elsewhere,
whom he consulted, that it would be unsuccessful. He
again came under my care in June, 1870, six years after
the receipt of the wound. His condition was most deplorable,
the pain in the hand, which was intensified by
any excitement, was indescribable, and he was unable to
attend to any active duties, except while under the influence
of morphia.
"
He suffered from irregular nervous chills of two or
three hours' duration, when he would be obliged, in the