[Significance of the type of trauma for the outcome of nerve injury].

The experience with 1896 restorative operations on injured nerve trunks shows a necessity to consider the problems of diagnosis, prognosis and choice of the treatment, and especially the results of the nerve suture, not in all patients with nerve injury but only in separate groups being comparable with respect to the kind and severity of the trauma. The probability of spontaneous recovery after cut and prick wounds is very small, if the signs of complete interruption of the conductivity are revealed from the very beginning. As a rule, nerve suture seems to be indicated after establishing the precise diagnosis. Rush and inadequate operations in primary surgical treatment of the wound, in particular, can cause an additional and severe trauma of the nerve, which repairing proves to be difficult and sometimes even impossible. In bone fractures the operation on injured nerves may be indicated after establishing the precise diagnosis during the period of "justified wating", taking into account the injury level and details of the clinical course. In traction lesions of the brachial plexus the correct diagnosis of the level and severity of the trauma must be established without an operation.