Trench "frost-bite" : some observations on cases admitted to the Duchess of Westminster's War Hospital / by C. Gordon Watson and Charles S. Myers.

  • Watson, C. Gordon.
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Trench "frost-bite" : some observations on cases admitted to the Duchess of Westminster's War Hospital / by C. Gordon Watson and Charles S. Myers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/16 (page 10)
    face of the first phalanx of the hallux was red and swollen. At the root of the nail was a small collection of pus from which Staphylococcus albus was cultivated. The swelling and redness gradually disappeared after treatment by fomentations. The patient never experienced any pain or hyperaesthesia. There was an area of tactile anaesthesia, which involved the right hallux; there was no anaesthesia elsewhere, and no hyperaesthesia. Case xv.—Gangrene of Feet following Exposure in a German Soldier. Private A. D. (German prisoner of war) was admitted on November 17th, 1914. This case, although not arising through exposure in the trenches, is here added as an extreme example of frost-bite. Case xv.—Gangrene of feet following exposure (German soldier.) On November 3rd he was hit in the buttock and in the middle toe of the left foot, probably by German fire during an attack on British trenches. He fell and remained in a wood for four or five days with very little food and exposed to much rain and cold (not frost). He cut off his boots on the second day, as he found that his feet were swollen and that he had no feeling in them. Unable to walk, he gave himself up to British troops, whose attention he managed to attract. On admission both feet were swollen, bluish-black, oedematous, cold, and insensi¬ tive. There were many large blisters on them containing serous fluid. The oedema extended to the junction of the upper and middle third of each leg ; temperature 102.4°, pulse 100. His general condition, usually frail, was now very weak.