[A patient who recovered successfully from severe anemia which continued for one hour]

A 79-year-old woman had her cervical spinal cord injured and laminoplasty of the neck was performed. Uncontrollable venous bleeding was encountered during the operation and about 5000 ml of blood was lost in one hour. Massive infusion of 5% albumin and hydroxyethylstarch (HES) was done to maintain the intravascular volume. Therefore, her hematocrit value (Ht) decreased to 4.5%. Her rectal temperature went down to 34.5 degrees C. The operation was finished in haste. We studied leg pain experienced under spinal anesthesia in leprosy patients. Seven of twenty patients complained of the leg pain a few minutes after spinal block. The pain was localized in the parts of deafferentation or phantom limb, and was relatively mild and controllable. We consider that the inhibitory system is inactivated when the somatic impulse is blocked by spinal anesthesia, and as a result the abnormal burst activity of dorsal horn produced by peripheral nerve damage of leprosy causes phantom pain.