Railway spine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 On Railway and Other Injuries of the Nervous System, published in 1864. For this reason, railway spine is often known as "Erichsen's disease".

Many physicians thought that the symptoms were due to the "excessive speeds" (about 30 mph) of the trains, and that the human body could not cope with speeds that fast. It was later found to be purely psychological in origin, and no longer exists as a valid disorder.

[edit] See also

• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Shaken Baby Syndrome
• Whiplash

[edit] External links

• The railway accident: trains, trauma and technological crisis in nineteenth-century Britain