Post-traumatic Pain Syndromes

Abstract

The cases classified as “post-traumatic pain syndromes” represent a symptom-complex characterized by severe pain and protracted disability following an apparently minor injury. Except that the pain lacks the “burning” quality that the term “causalgia” implies, they seem to be identical in type with the minor causalgias. They constitute the most numerous and most important representatives of that group of cases, ascribable to chronic irritation of sensory nerve fibers, which I have termed “the causalgic states.” The fact that they are described separately gives me an opportunity to discuss some other aspects of the general problems created by the causalgic states, than have been mentioned in the previous two chapters.