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''. 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 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, sometimes belittling people's pain as litigation neurosis, implying that the only real problem was the injured person making a legal claim. 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 Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurology, neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on groundbreaking work about hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise A ...

and Herbert Page, insisted that some symptoms could be caused by

hysteria Hysteria is a term used to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, female hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that the bas ...

(now known as

conversion disorder Conversion disorder (CD) was a formerly diagnosed psychiatric disorder characterized by abnormal sensory experiences and movement problems during periods of high psychological stress. Individuals diagnosed with CD presented with highly distressin ...

). 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

posttraumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a Psychological trauma, traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster ...

(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 , year = 2007 , location = Philadelphia, PA , pages = 23–55 , url = , isbn = 978-0-7890-3335-2

Notes

Injuries Traumatology Anxiety disorders History of mental health in the United Kingdom Obsolete terms for mental disorders Railway accidents and incidents

See also

Notes