Sciatica : a record of clinical observations on the causes, nature, and treatment of sixty-eight cases / by A. Symons Eccles.

  • Eccles, A. Symons.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sciatica : a record of clinical observations on the causes, nature, and treatment of sixty-eight cases / by A. Symons Eccles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    flexion, while dorsal flexion of the foot is carefully avoided so as to prevent any tension on the posterior tibial nerve as it passes behind the inner malleolus to form the plantar nerves. In some cases distinct thickening of the nerve-sheath is recognisable at the inner ankle and along the inner \ side of the tendon Achillis. In long-continued cases, the muscles of the calf, and sometimes the hamstrings, become the seat of painful cramps, generally occurring at night, or after the patient has been sitting for some time in the constrained position resulting from the effort to protect the painful nerve from pressure. At the same time, the pain in the nerve itself often assumes a throbbing or darting character over and above the burning, continuous pain already men- tioned as a marked feature in perineuritis. The duration of sciatica does not appear to depend so much upon the severity of the initial symptoms as on the rapidity with which the pro- ducts of inflammation are removed from the lymph-spaces of the nerve-sheath ; for in several cases coming under the notice of the writer, the suffering has been most acute from the outset, but has yielded to treatment directed towards the reduction of inflammation and the absorption of the resulting oedema of the sheath. The long- continued dull, aching, or gnawing sciatic pain.