Abstract
The chest complications found in 50 acute tetraplegic and paraplegic patients admitted during a two-year period have been described.Eighteen of the patients were found to have an aspiration pneumonia in the early stages after injury. In 16 of the patients it was found in the posterior basal segment of the lung.Six patients had a haemothorax. In five of these patients it was associated with a mid-hthoracic fracture of the spine.Eight patients died, five of these were high cervical injuries. At post-mortem the lungs were oedematous.The influence of head injury, the degree of muscular paralysis, smoking, paralytic ileus and fractures of the ribs upon the mechanics of breathing are discussed.This study was carried out with the aid of a grant from the National Fund for Research into Poliomyelitis and Other Crippling Diseases, to whom the author is greatly indebted.I would like to express my thanks to Dr. K. D. F. Morle, M.D., D.M.R.D., for his stimulating advice and interest throughout the last two years. I would also like to thank Miss M. A. Butler-Wright and the radiographers at the Promenade Hospital, Southport, for the uniformly high standard of their work.
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