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

64 INJURIES OF NERVES.
antique French charpie dressing to excite suppuration
was employed. On its removal, at the fifth day, a sharp
pain began to be felt in the plexus, and, gradually increasing,
became intense. There was high fever, insomnia,
and headache. The median nerve was hard, enlarged,
and exquisitely tender throughout, but especially high
up. Over it the skin was deep red. The pain, which was
constant, was made worse by movement. The forearm
was swollen, and the fingers numb and feeble. The case
was actively treated with leeches, venesection, and emollients,
and, after a threat of erysipelas, which proved to
be only an extension of the super-neural erythema, the
case was discharged, well, at the twenty-fourth day.
There were no after-consequences.
The following example
is less striking and was also less
fortunate:
Case 2.— J. C, sergeant, consulted me on account of loss
of power in the arm, with severe neuralgia. At Gettysburg
he received a ball wound in the left neck, splintering
the clavicle and emerging through the trapezius. Some
fragments of bone were lifted out of the wound, which
did well until a week later, when, on the way to Washington,
he was suddenly taken with a chill, of some
severity, followed by high fever. At the same time the
whole arm began to ache, darting pains shot up and down
it,
and the skin on the inside of the arm, below the axilla,
was seen to be red. The nerve tracks were extremely
tender. On the third day the whole arm was somewhat
swollen, and the darting and aching pain was only subdued
by frequent hypodermic injections. His first notable
relief was obtained by an application of cut cups to the
neck and shoulder, and gradually the pain lessened to
its present grade of severity. The ulnar and median were
hard, enormously enlarged, and very tender. J. C. described
himself as having been made delirious by the