http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/365037580

Peripheral Nerve Regeneration. A Follow-up Study of 3,656 World War II Injuries

More than 10 years have elapsed since the first casualties of the African invasion arrived at the Walter Reed General Hospital for continuing treatment of their war wounds. In this initial convoy of 94 casualties, the harbinger of many others, were 10 peripheral nerve injuries. They were the first of 25,000 peripheral nerve injuries that were subsequently distributed among 19 neurosurgical centers established by the Army Medical Corps. Many of these patients had already received definitive peripheral nerve surgery in specialized neurosurgical facilities in general hospitals in England and in the North African theater. The responsibility for their treatment rested upon a small group of young neurosurgeons who had been largely recruited under the leadership of Colonel R. Glen Spurling of Louisville, Ky., and upon others who were in turn stimulated to initiate a similar program among injured personnel of the Navy and Marine Corps. To this nidus of neurosurgically trained individuals was added a larger group, both here and overseas, of general surgeons who had been trained under civilian, Army, and Navy auspices in the specific demands of military neurosurgery. In this respect, particular mention should be made of schools established at Columbia University and at the University of Pennsylvania under, respectively, Tracy Putnam and Francis Grant, where general surgeons were indoctrinated in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. These were experimental ventures at the time but they proved exceedingly worthwhile.

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