Closed Head Injuries

This paper reports the findings in the brains of five patients who' survived a closed head injury in a more or less decerebrate and extremely demented state, for five to 15 months. These cases were selected from a series of patients who died after prolonged coma or other severe disturbances of consciousness following head injury. Both clinically and pathologically they form a distinct group. The head injuries were uncomplicated, that is, there were no fractures of the skull, no intracranial haematomata or lacerations of the brain, and in particular there was no evidence of raised intracranial pressure at any time, yet the patients remained quadriparetic and almost totally unresponsive from the time of the accident. Pathologically the main finding,