RSI is not a recent problem emerging from the computer revolution. Work-related hand and arm injuries have actually been recognized for more than 250 years.

According to an article in The New York Times, in the early 1700s, an Italian doctor named Bernadino Ramazinni described cumulative microtrauma as a main cause of occupational disease.

One of the diseases Ramazinni recognized was writer's cramp--"disease of the scribes." He says it was an injury people got from "an incessant driving of pen over paper," according to Repetitive Strain Injury, a book by Emil Pascarelli that is recommended by RSI Action members as a foremost authority on the injury.

Historically, RSI had plagued meat-packers, sewers, musicians, telegraphers and cashiers. But RSI was given little attention before it struck the white-collar workers in the corporate and academic world.

Interfering With Daily Life

Students who have RSI say that the injury has interfered with their academic activities and daily life.

Carmen C. Green '99, a biology concentrator, was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome last summer after working nine-hour days at the computer for her job at a hospital in her hometown of Memphis, Tenn.

She says that before she went to the doctor, her injury was very debilitating.

"I had excruciating pain in my hand," she says. "I couldn't drive...I couldn't do anything."

Since August, Green has worn arm braces every day. These have helped her to use a computer again.

"Even if I am checking e-mail, by just typing my login name, I start to have pain and have to put on my braces," she says.

But Green says the braces do not enable her to do everything as well as she used to. She particularly notices that her ability to take notes in class has deteriorated. With RSI, she says she must take notes more slowly because it is painful to write too fast.

"I can't take all the notes I want to because it hurts," she says. "My notes just aren't as detailed."

Grimmelmann, who got RSI while working for Microsoft Corp. two summers ago, says that he had to take his finals under special conditions the fall semester he returned because his wrist hurt so much when he tried to write. The special conditions allowed him extra time so that he could massage his wrists in between writing paragraphs.

Caywood says that his RSI has limited the types of courses he can take as a computer science concentrator.