Urologic Complications in Injury of the Spinal Cord

The problems related to the treatment of patients who have received injuries to their spinal cords have always interested physicians. During and after World War I, substantial contributions were made to the knowledge of this subject by Head and Riddoch,1Riddoch,2Fearnsides3and Plaggemeyer.4More recently Munro5has written extensively on the subject, while Petroff6and his associates and Kuhn7have reported on the treatment of paraplegic patients in the United States Army hospitals. Improved methods of rapid transportation following injury and advances in chemotherapy resulting in the advent of the sulfonamide drugs followed by the still more efficient antibiotics, penicillin and streptomycin, together with the more efficient and general use of blood and plasma transfusions, have resulted in the survival of many who formerly would have died a few hours after their injury or, if they survived, would have succumbed to infection