Accident and injury : their relations to diseases of the nervous system.

  • Bailey, Pearce, 1865-1922.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Accident and injury : their relations to diseases of the nervous system. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    ACCIDENT AND INJURY. INTRODUCTION. THE CONSIDERATION OF THE CASE. No sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between the disorders of the nervous system which develop as a result of acutely occurring injuries and those which owe their existence to causes operating more slowly, or whose clinical manifestations, although they may appear suddenly, are the effects of subtle morbid conditions that have been for a long time active. Yet, as every causal factor adds its spe- cial cachet to the conditions it induces, so injury and shock put their stamps upon the nervous affections which are their results. It is the effects of traumatisms upon the nerv- ous system which will be considered in the following pages. The word traumatic is permitted so many meanings that its limitations must be clearly understood. In its most re- stricted sense it applies only to such injuries as are the re- sults of acutely acting physical violence, while in its widest meaning it includes any detriment to health which originates outside of the body. By the first meaning of the term psychic influences are disregarded ; by the latter interpreta- tion its scope would be practically unlimited, as it would include all morbid conditions which owe their existence to toxic or mechanical causes, such as lead poisoning, alcohol- ism, or writer's cramp, as well as the crushing of nervous tissue from the pressure of broken-down protecting struc-