Causalgia

In the last few years the centenary of many events which occurred during the American Civil War has been celebrated. One important medical event has apparently passed unnoticed. This is the first description of that remarkable and fascinating complication of nerve wounds which we know as causalgia. In October 1864, during the penultimate stage of the American Civil War, while Grant with the army of the Potomac was beseiging Petersburg and Sherman was about to start to march from "Atlanta to the sea," three young acting assistant surgeons in the US Army, Silas Weir Mitchell, George R. Morehouse, and William W. Keen published a small volume which has become one of the classics of medical literature.1Gunshot Wounds and Other Injuries of Nerveswas the first monograph devoted entirely to the subject of peripheral nerve injuries; and among the outstanding parts of the book, there is a graphic