9 
on the Irritability of Nerves. 
pressed down on the nerve. This pressure gave great pain, 
and, instead of arresting the progress of the spasms, seemed 
rather to increase their violence ; it was therefore left off. 
The twenty-seventh day, the pulse was only between 80 
and go in a minute ; there were seven spasms, all of which 
were arrested by the first or second tourniquet. 
The spasms went on, with very little variation, till the 39th 
day at six o'clock in the morning, when he was seized in his 
sleep with a violent spasm, attended with insensibility, and con- 
vulsions over the whole body : these lasted for twenty minutes. 
After his recovery, the hand was found much swoln, and the 
welt formed by the cicatrix was painful. In the course of the 
forenoon he was well enough to bear going out in the carriage; 
the fresh air always proving very grateful to him. 
From this time, the swelling of the hand and the hardness 
of the welt diminished ; and the spasms were less violent, and 
seldomer. On the 45th day, there was only one slight spasm 
in twenty-six hours. In this state he went into the country ; 
and, for the first fortnight, the spasms diminished, but after- 
wards became more violent. 
The return of the spasms after the wound had been healed, 
made it evident, that the operation of dividing the nerve had not 
answered the purpose which was expected from it. The failure 
probably arose from the wound not healing by the first inten- 
tion : the consequent inflammation rendered the cut end of the 
nerve uncommonly irritable ; and, in this state, the confinement 
in the hard thickened cicatrix, rendered it liable to be stretched 
by every motion of the thumb, so as to bring on spasmodic 
contractions. 
From this time, the patient was not under my direction ; but 
MDCCCI. C 
