Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [338]
191 shows the extent of the injury, and the ultimate results of the treatment.
Schaeffer also reports the case of a woman working in a button factory at Union City, Conn., in 1871, who placed her head under a swiftly turning shaft to pick up a button, when her hair caught in the shaft, taking off her scalp from the nape of the neck to the eyebrows. The scalp was cleansed by her physician, Dr. Bartlett, and placed on her head about two hours after the accident, but it did not stay in position. Then the head was covered twice by skin-grafts, but each time the grafts were lost; but the third time a successful grafting was performed and she was enabled to work after a period of two years. The same authority also quotes Wilson and Way of Bristol, Conn., in an account of a complete avulsion of the scalp, together with tearing of the eyelid and ear. The result of the skin-grafting was not given. Powell of Chicago gives an account of a girl of nineteen who lost her scalp while working in the Elgin Watch Factory at Elgin, Illinois. The wound extended across the forehead above the eyebrows, but the ears were untouched. Skin- grafting was tried in this case but with no result, and the woman afterward lost an eye by exposure, from retraction of the eyelid.
In some cases extensive wounds of the scalp heal without artificial aid by simply cicatrizing over. Gross mentions such a case in a young lady, who, in 1869, lost her scalp in a factory. There is reported an account of a conductor on the Union Pacific Railroad, who, near Cheyenne, in 1869, was scalped by Sioux Indians. He suffered an elliptic wound, ten by eight cm., a portion of the outer table of the cranium being removed, yet the wound healed over.
Cerebral Injuries.--The recent advances in brain-surgery have, in a measure, diminished the interest and wonder of some of the older instances of major injuries of the cerebral contents with unimportant after-results, and in reviewing the older cases we must remember that the recoveries were made under the most unfavorable conditions, and without the slightest knowledge of all important asepsis and antisepsis.
Penetration or even complete transfixion of the brain is not always attended with serious symptoms. Dubrisay is accredited with the description of a man of forty-four, who, with suicidal intent, drove a dagger ten cm. long and one cm. wide into his brain. He had deliberately held the dagger in his left hand. and with a mallet in his right hand struck the steel several blows. When seen two hours later he claimed that he experienced no pain, and the dagger was sticking out of his head. For half an hour efforts at extraction were made, but with no avail. He was placed on the ground and held by two persons while traction was made with carpenter's pliers. This failing, he was taken to a coppersmith's, where he was fastened by rings to the ground, and strong pinchers were placed over the dagger and attached to a chain which was fastened to a cylinder revolved by steam force. At the second turn of the cylinder the dagger came out. During all the efforts at extraction the patient remained perfectly cool and complained of no pain. A few drops of blood escaped from the wound after the removal of the dagger, and in a few minutes the man walked to a hospital where he remained a few days without fever or pain. The wound healed, and he soon returned to work. By experiments on the cadaver Dubrisay found that the difficulty in extraction was due to rust on the steel, and by the serrated edges of the wound in the bone.
Warren describes a case of epilepsy of seven months' standing, from depression of the skull caused by a red hot poker thrown at the subject's head. Striking the frontal bone just above the orbit, it entered three inches into the cerebral substance. Kesteven reports the history of a boy of thirteen who, while holding a fork in his hand, fell from the top of a load of straw. One of the prongs entered the head one inch behind and on a line with the lobe of the left ear and passed upward and slightly backward to almost
Schaeffer also reports the case of a woman working in a button factory at Union City, Conn., in 1871, who placed her head under a swiftly turning shaft to pick up a button, when her hair caught in the shaft, taking off her scalp from the nape of the neck to the eyebrows. The scalp was cleansed by her physician, Dr. Bartlett, and placed on her head about two hours after the accident, but it did not stay in position. Then the head was covered twice by skin-grafts, but each time the grafts were lost; but the third time a successful grafting was performed and she was enabled to work after a period of two years. The same authority also quotes Wilson and Way of Bristol, Conn., in an account of a complete avulsion of the scalp, together with tearing of the eyelid and ear. The result of the skin-grafting was not given. Powell of Chicago gives an account of a girl of nineteen who lost her scalp while working in the Elgin Watch Factory at Elgin, Illinois. The wound extended across the forehead above the eyebrows, but the ears were untouched. Skin- grafting was tried in this case but with no result, and the woman afterward lost an eye by exposure, from retraction of the eyelid.
In some cases extensive wounds of the scalp heal without artificial aid by simply cicatrizing over. Gross mentions such a case in a young lady, who, in 1869, lost her scalp in a factory. There is reported an account of a conductor on the Union Pacific Railroad, who, near Cheyenne, in 1869, was scalped by Sioux Indians. He suffered an elliptic wound, ten by eight cm., a portion of the outer table of the cranium being removed, yet the wound healed over.
Cerebral Injuries.--The recent advances in brain-surgery have, in a measure, diminished the interest and wonder of some of the older instances of major injuries of the cerebral contents with unimportant after-results, and in reviewing the older cases we must remember that the recoveries were made under the most unfavorable conditions, and without the slightest knowledge of all important asepsis and antisepsis.
Penetration or even complete transfixion of the brain is not always attended with serious symptoms. Dubrisay is accredited with the description of a man of forty-four, who, with suicidal intent, drove a dagger ten cm. long and one cm. wide into his brain. He had deliberately held the dagger in his left hand. and with a mallet in his right hand struck the steel several blows. When seen two hours later he claimed that he experienced no pain, and the dagger was sticking out of his head. For half an hour efforts at extraction were made, but with no avail. He was placed on the ground and held by two persons while traction was made with carpenter's pliers. This failing, he was taken to a coppersmith's, where he was fastened by rings to the ground, and strong pinchers were placed over the dagger and attached to a chain which was fastened to a cylinder revolved by steam force. At the second turn of the cylinder the dagger came out. During all the efforts at extraction the patient remained perfectly cool and complained of no pain. A few drops of blood escaped from the wound after the removal of the dagger, and in a few minutes the man walked to a hospital where he remained a few days without fever or pain. The wound healed, and he soon returned to work. By experiments on the cadaver Dubrisay found that the difficulty in extraction was due to rust on the steel, and by the serrated edges of the wound in the bone.
Warren describes a case of epilepsy of seven months' standing, from depression of the skull caused by a red hot poker thrown at the subject's head. Striking the frontal bone just above the orbit, it entered three inches into the cerebral substance. Kesteven reports the history of a boy of thirteen who, while holding a fork in his hand, fell from the top of a load of straw. One of the prongs entered the head one inch behind and on a line with the lobe of the left ear and passed upward and slightly backward to almost