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

NEURAL MALADIES OF STUMPS. 353
fingers, very rarely to the elbow, or, in the leg, to the
arch of the foot. Many persons relieve this feeling by
but others derive no benefit from
rubbing the stump; this procedure.
I have elsewhere spoken of the sensitiveness of stumps
to heat and cold. Some men have no subjective sensation
due to thermal changes in the stump; but about
one-third complain of coldness in the lost part when the
stump is chilled, and of heat in it when the stump is
warm. I tested this by dipping arm-stumps in icedwater
or water at one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and
found that a few men experience a subjective sensation of
heat and cold, but of the rest more feel a sensation of
referred cold than of heat, and there is often some confusion
as to whether the missing part experiences cold or
heat, or is
merely painful. Perhaps in these cases, the
knowledge of the fact that cold or heat is being used on
the stump inclines the patient, in whom there is thus produced
any subjective impression, to consider it as heat or
cold. I see no way of escape from this possible fallacy but
;
some of my best witnesses are confident as to the fact that
a cold or hot stump makes a cold or hot limb and if
;
so, it is
interesting in a physiological point of view to know that
thermal impressions on the ends of nerves or on their
continuity may occasion like sensations referred to the
ultimate distributions. I have known persons who suffered
in hot weather from sense of heat in the lost hand,
and were able to ease it
by using cold to the stump.
—
Subjective sensations as to motor jphenomena in the lost limb.
The facts connected with subjective sensations of movement
and as to delusions in regard to the position of the
part are extremely
Position.— curious.
Impressions regarding the leg are far less
vivid than those connected with the arm. The former
limb when lost seems to hang straight,
and there is usu-