Railway spine

Railway spine

Railway spine was a nineteenth-century diagnosis for the post-traumatic symptoms of passengers involved in railroad accidents.

The first full length medical study of the condition was John Eric Erichsen's classic book, "On Railway and Other Injuries of the Nervous System". [cite book
last = Erichsen
first = JE
authorlink = John Eric Erichsen
title = On Railway and Other Injuries of the Nervous System
publisher = Henry C. Lea
date = 1867
location = Philadelphia, PA
url = http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=fz9GX8Q72-oC&dq=%22On+Railway+and+Other+Injuries+of+the+Nervous+System%22&printsec=frontcover ] For this reason, railway spine is often known as "Erichsen's disease".

Railway collisions were a frequent occurrence in the early 19th century. Exacerbating the problem was the fact that railway cars were flimsy, wooden structures with no protection for the occupants.

Soon a group of people started coming forward who claimed that they had been injured in train crashes, but had no obvious evidence of injury. The railroads rejected these claims as fake.

The nature of symptoms caused by "railway spine" was hotly debated in the late 19th century, notably at the meetings of the (Austrian) Imperial Society of Physicians in Vienna, 1886. Germany's leading neurologist, Hermann Oppenheim, claimed that all railway spine symptoms were due to physical damage to the spine or brain, whereas French and British scholars, notably Jean-Martin Charcot and Herbert Page, insisted that some symptoms could be caused by hysteria (now known as conversion disorder). [cite book
last = Ellenberger | first = Henri | authorlink = Henri Ellenberger
title = The Discovery of the Unconscious | publisher = Basic Books | date = 1970
location = New York | pages = pp. 437-39
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=LE_IML-OHPQC&pg=PA437&lpg=PA439
isbn = 0-465-01673-1] [cite journal
last = Harrington | first = Ralph
title = The railway accident: Trains, trauma and technological crisis in nineteenth-century Britain
journal = Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History | date = 2003
url = http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/irs/irshome/papers/rlyacc.htm
accessdate = 2008-08-27] [cite book
last = Page | first = Herbert
title = Injuries of the Spine and Spinal Column Without Apparent Mechanical Lesion
publisher = J. A. Churchill | date = 1885
location = London | pages = pp. 25, 62, 69, and 162
url = http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=cvlj2l1o-pkC&dq=page+Injuries+of+the+Spine+and+Spinal+Cord+Without+Apparent+Mechanical+Lesion&printsec=frontcover]

Erichsen observed that those most likely to be injured in a railway crash were those sitting with their backs to the acceleration. This is the same injury mechanism found in whiplash. As with automobile accidents, railway and airplane accidents are now known to cause post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other psychosomatic symptoms in addition to physical trauma. [cite book
last = Scaer
first = Robert
title = The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, Second Edition
publisher = Haworth Press
date = 2007
location = Philadelphia, PA
pages = pp. 23-55
url = http://www.traumasoma.com/
isbn = 978-078903335-2]

Notes


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