Injury of the spinal cord due to rupture of an intervertebral disk during muscular effort

Abstract

A man was lifting a heavy plate from the floor to a bench, when he felt a “crack” in the small of his back. He suffered intense pain, and was unable to straighten himself. Paraplegia soon developed, and patient died sixteen days later, principally from the effects of bedsores and septic cystitis. The cause of the paraplegia was haemorrhage and softening in the lumbar enlargement of the spinal cord, and the cause of this was found in a mass of the pulp of an intervertebral disc which had been displaced into the vertebral canal.