ABSTRACT
In America, Britain, and many other parts of the world, the commonest causes of head injury are road traffic accidents (RTAs) and falls. Apart from accidents, other common causes include gunshot wounds (self-inflicted or otherwise), sport, and deliberate mayhem, such as occurs in boxing. In the Oxford records there is a single case of a javelin wound in the brain. The former Oxford neurosurgeon Joe Pennybacker, in a list of personally handled cases of head injury sustained in the course of sport, after many instances of trauma from boxing, cricket, football and equitation, concluded with a single entry under the heading ‘chess’. The patient, while waiting for his opponent to move, had tilted his chair too far backwards and cracked his skull.
