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

LESIONS OF SPECIAL NERVES. 331
left side. Tactility is equally good on the two sides, both
in the tongue and face.
June 20th.— The sight is
becoming worse. Dr. Dyer,
who examined the patient with care, is of opinion that it
was affected before he received his wound. Induced
electric currents give rise to slight movement in the left
eyelid, and the elevator of the angle of the mouth. A
rapid recovery was predicted, and, in fact, three days
later voluntary power returned in the orbicular muscle
of the eye. By July 27th, every motion had been reacquired.
In this case the ball must have injured the auditory as
well as the facial nerve by shock rather than directly.
Yet, as all the nerve tissues in the temporal bone alike
suffered, the result was seen in loss of power and in disturbance
of speech and taste.
Case 62.— Gunshot wound of left portia dura nerve; total
jparalysis of motioyi ;
taste affected; tongue movements impaired;
deafness on left side. John C. Dyre,* Pennsylvania, aged
nineteen, machinist, enlisted May, 1861, Company E, 71st
Pennsylvania Volunteers. Health good up to date of
wound, at Gettysburg, July 8, 1863. While aiming, a
ball entered just behind the left ear at the level of the
meatus. It broke the mastoid process slightly, and was
said to have gone forward and downward. It has not
been found. He fell unconscious, and reviving within
about two hours at a hospital where he had been carried,
he found that he could not use the jaw, owing to pain in
the ear. There was also pain in the left cheek and brow,
left neck, shoulder, arm, and hand. The left arm was
weak for several days. He thinks he may have fallen
upon it. The pain was a neuralgic ache, not the pain of
a bruise. Water-dressings were used after a vain search
* Gunshot "Wounds, etc., op. cit.