What is "railway spine"

Railroad \Rail"road`\ (r[=a]l"r[=o]d`), Railway \Rail"way`\ (r[=a]l"w[=a]`), n.

1. A road or way consisting of one or more parallel series of iron or steel rails, patterned and adjusted to be tracks for the wheels of vehicles, and suitably supported on a bed or substructure.

   Note: The modern railroad is a development and adaptation of the older tramway.

2. The road, track, etc., with all the lands, buildings, rolling stock, franchises, etc., pertaining to them and constituting one property; as, a certain railroad has been put into the hands of a receiver. Note: Railway is the commoner word in England; railroad the commoner word in the United States. Note: In the following and similar phrases railroad and railway are used interchangeably: Atmospheric railway, Elevated railway, etc. See under Atmospheric, Elevated, etc. Cable railway. See Cable road, under Cable. Ferry railway, a submerged track on which an elevated platform runs, for carrying a train of cars across a water course. Gravity railway, a railway, in a hilly country, on which the cars run by gravity down gentle slopes for long distances after having been hauled up steep inclines to an elevated point by stationary engines. Railway brake, a brake used in stopping railway cars or locomotives. Railway car, a large, heavy vehicle with flanged wheels fitted for running on a railway. [U.S.] Railway carriage, a railway passenger car. [Eng.] Railway scale, a platform scale bearing a track which forms part of the line of a railway, for weighing loaded cars. Railway slide. See Transfer table, under Transfer. Railway spine (Med.), an abnormal condition due to severe concussion of the spinal cord, such as occurs in railroad accidents. It is characterized by ataxia and other disturbances of muscular function, sensory disorders, pain in the back, impairment of general health, and cerebral disturbance, -- the symptoms often not developing till some months after the injury. Underground railroad Underground railway.

   1. A railroad or railway running through a tunnel, as beneath the streets of a city.

   2. Formerly, a system of co["o]peration among certain active antislavery people in the United States prior to 1866, by which fugitive slaves were secretly helped to reach Canada.

      Note: [In the latter sense railroad, and not railway, was usually used.] ``Their house was a principal entrep[^o]t of the underground railroad.''
      --W. D. Howells.

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 the fact 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.

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 and Herbert Page, insisted that some symptoms could be caused by hysteria (now known as conversion disorder).

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 (PTSD) and other psychosomatic symptoms in addition to physical trauma.