EFFECTS OF TRANSIENT STRETCHING OF PERIPHERAL NERVE

Abstract

Reports of nerve injuries resulting from war wounds frequently include evidence of damage to peripheral nerves without loss of anatomic continuity. A spindle-shaped neuroma is frequently reported in such circumstances.¹ In other cases a lasting loss of excitability of the nerve is traced to a region of intraneural thickening or fibrosis. Similar findings are encountered in cases of traction injury to the brachial plexus in civilian practice.² The condition is usually attributed to intraneural hemorrhage immediately following injury and its replacement by fibrosis.² Such cicatrices have usually a very poor prognosis for recovery of function, though occasionally remarkable recovery may occur spontaneously. In attempting to ascertain the features which enable good recovery to be made through some "spindle neuromas" and the factors which prevent recovery in others, we have studied the effect of percussion of nerve experimentally.³ Percussion will produce with regularity a pseudoneuroma, or localized