Medical evidence in railway accidents / by John Charles Hall.

  • Hall, John Charles, 1816-1876.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical evidence in railway accidents / by John Charles Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the walls of the chest; because the intercostal muscles have not the power of acting—and so sneezing, coughing, &c, are no longer capable of being performed. It is hardly necessary to point out that inspiration is carried on almost entirely by the dia- phragm, and that the blood, not being arterialised, congestive pneumonia in a very short period terminates the life of the patient. If the lower cervical region be the part injured, there is also, as the result of the injury, paralysis of the upper extremities, and the inspiration is altogether diaphragmatic. Such is an epitome of the symptoms of injury to the different portions of the spinal chord which I have seen. The student must not expect to find them exactly as described in every case that may come before him. It is one thing to diagnose concussion, or any other present, remote, or possible result of spinal injury, to the satisfaction of the examiners at the London University, or the Eoyal Colleges of Phy- sicians and Surgeons, and altogether another thing to do so at the bedside of a patient. The physicians and surgeons who have been most actively and thoughtfully engaged in practice, are certainly those who are most deeply and seriously impressed with the grave responsibility of him who undertakes the instruction of a class of students in the Lecture Theatre—of him who has undertaken to instruct others in that art which he has himself found to be so difficult. Ars longa, vita brevis The more we see of disease, the more do we become convinced that every case has its own individual requirements, and to which we have to accommodate the knowledge gathered in the treatment of other cases having a resemblance to it, and having the same essen- tial pathology. One of the most precious results of such experi- c