on the Irritability of Nerves. 21 
but there, was no recurrence of them after the wound was com- 
pletely healed. 
This is a very important fact ; as it proves that inflammation 
on the cut end of a nerve, while in an irritable state, is capable 
of producing exactly the same symptoms as the original disease. 
This effect of inflammation upon the end of a nerve, explains 
the startings of the limb which occur too frequently after ampu- 
tation. 
These most commonly are met with when the limb is taken 
off above the knee, and the nerves and vessels have been pre- 
viously inflamed higher than the part at which they were 
divided; and where the nerve is confined by the thickened 
state of the surrounding parts. 
The same fact also explains the cause of locked jaw, when 
it is produced by a wound or bruise upon a nerve, in a con- 
stitution either rendered irritable by climate, or naturally so ; 
also where the nerve itself becomes diseased, in consequence of 
the accident. 
The following case of locked jaw, from an injury to the 
thumb, bears so great a resemblance to the case related in the 
beginning of this paper, as to show that the diseases must be 
nearly allied. 
A lady of a very irritable habit was overturned in her car- 
riage, and hurt her thumb, which swelled very much ; and the 
skin over the metacarpal bone of the fore-finger, about the size 
of a shilling, sloughed off. No symptoms came on for four- 
teen days after the accident, when, upon bending her fingers, 
violent spasms took place in the thumb, which proceeded up to 
the neck and lower jaw ; these were exceedingly painful, and 
the jaw was so much shut as hardly to admit a tea-spoon. In 
