ACUTE HYPERTENSION AND DELAYED TRAUMATIC RUPTURE OF THE AORTA

Abstract

The problems of physiological effects of acceleration have become of great importance in the Age of Speed. Increasingly efficient methods of propelling the human body through space have required the development of a new field devoted to the analysis and measurement of the stresses that the body or its parts may withstand. As man attempts to keep apace of his own machines, every opportunity to examine specific instances becomes important. As the case reported here concerned a young pregnant woman, the obstetric and medicolegal problems accentuated the immediate practical importance of the pathological features. The occurrence of severe persistent hypertension was an unusual and important feature. REPORT OF A CASE During the final month of her first pregnancy, a 20-year-old white woman was a passenger in a taxicab which was involved in a collision with a private automobile. The patient was thrown forward violently and struck the upper part of