Lectures on the diseases of the spinal cord / by J.M. Charcot ; tr. from the French by Cornelius G. Comegys.

  • Charcot, J. M. (Jean Martin), 1825-1893.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the diseases of the spinal cord / by J.M. Charcot ; tr. from the French by Cornelius G. Comegys. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    take some demonstrations on various points relative to this great chapter. Thus seven years ago appositely to inflammation considered in general, I presented an anatomico pathological sketch of spinal scleroses. The following year, while treating on degeneration and atrophies, I undertook to show the eminent role, and at that time but little known, which certain parts of the nervous centres play in the development of various trophic troubles and particularly in muscular atrophies. Finally, four years since, I essayed, in a series of lectures, to make plain the anatomico clinical method which shall permit us to establish on a solid basis the doctrine of cerebral localization in man. But on the whole, gentlemen, these diverse subjects have not been dwelt upon except in an incidental way, as elements contributing to the solution of more general questions. Moreover, notwithstanding the interest attached to them, they are only episodes in the anatomico pathological history of the nervous .system. It seems to me that it would be useful now to consider in themselves the facts which compose this history both individually and collectively. For the rest, the times appear to be favorable for undertaking ,this study. Innumerable materials, relative to these questions, have been laboriously collected in the course of a few years past. They have remained, as yet, scattered in various publications. The feeling has become general that they should be coordinated, in order to form a part of classical instruction. Thus, there have appeared recently, in France and elsewhere, several large mono- graphs, and even some dogmatic treatises, concerning, especially, the pathology of the nervous system. In these works the new documents always maintain beside those of the older periods an honorable place, indeed, they often take the first rank. It will suffice, gentleipen, in looking over these works to see ])lainly the indications of a decided progress, and to establish that a great part in the accomplishment of this progress appertains to anatomico pathological researches, rendered more penetrating by the employment of the more i)erfect methods of modern histology. We dwell upon this point more particularly, gentlemen, by reason