Note 801 — ON INJURIES OF THE HEAD.

The danger of incisions, in the temporal region, is adverted to in several parts of the Hippocratic Collection, as in the work On the Articulations, in the Prorrhetics, and the Coan Prænotions. Even at the present day, when the treatment of hemorrhage is better understood than in the days of the great Fathers of Grecian medicine, a large incision in that quarter is regarded with considerable apprehension. Convulsion, that is to say, tetanus, was supposed to be the frequent, if not the invariable, result of a wound in the temporal muscle. Pott, indeed, contends that lock-jaw is not necessarily produced by a wound there; he admits, however, that the application of the trepan to the temple is not often successful, but the reason of this he contends is, that in these fractures the breach generally extends to the base of the skull (§ 5). Quesnay, however, inclines to support the views of Hippocrates. (On the Use of the Trepan, p. 15, Syd. Soc. edit.) Scultet, in like manner, pronounces decidedly that a wound in the temple is a very dangerous affair. (Armam. Chirurg. Tabl. xxxi.)