Pain in the arm; a review.

No one will deny the common occurrence of pain in the arm, nor the frequency with which the diagnosis of brachial neuritis was formerly made in such cases. Nevertheless, the pathology of brachial neuritis has not yet been described convincingly, and in recent years attention has been focused upon certain other common syndromes, the study of their well-defined morbid anatomy leaving little doubt that they are responsible for a very large proportion of cases of pain in the arm. We now believe that brachial interstitial neuritis is a comparatively uncommon condition and that this diagnosis should be made only rarely, when all other causes of brachial pain have been excluded. The accompanying Table gives a fairly comprehensive list of the causes of the symptom in question, arranged roughly according to the site of the lesion, but only five syndromes will be discussed in detail, namely: the root symptoms and signs of spondylitis; prolapse of a cervical intervertebral disc; compression at the thoracic outlet; brachial neuritis; referred pain.