A treatise on diseases and injuries of the nerves / by Joseph Swan.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diseases and injuries of the nerves / by Joseph Swan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In many cases of aneurism, in which the pain has been severe from the stretching of a nerve, it has ceased entirely after the application of a ligature on the artery. Violent pain may, however, be produced in the limb from some change in the circulation, as in a case* of aneurism in which Mr. James passed a ligature around the aorta. He says “ the symptom which most demands elucidation was the terrible pain in the limb, which seemed far to surpass that of the operation. For this I can assign no adequate reason, nor did the examination of the body afford any, at least as far as I could with the utmost care discover. There was no evidence during the time he lived of the circulation below the ligature having failed. ” Sir Astley Cooper says,f “ a man who had undergone the operation for popliteal aneurism, complained in the evening of his leg being painful, and a dresser going through the ward, applied a lotion of the acetate of lead, and when the rags were removed on the following morning, the limb was mortified. ” When pain is excited in this manner, it is difficult to state precisely the cause, but it may be owing to the distention of the fibrils of the nerves by congestion of the veins, as I have previously stated, or the imperfect supply of blood by the arteries, and similar to the pain * Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. 16, page 17* f Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. 2, page 252.