A case of rapid "wasting palsy" from structural disease of the spinal cord / by J.L.W. Thudichum. The investigation of the nervous centres with comments / by J. Lockhart Clarke.

  • Thudichum, J. L. W. (John Louis William), 1829-1901.
Date:
[1863]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of rapid "wasting palsy" from structural disease of the spinal cord / by J.L.W. Thudichum. The investigation of the nervous centres with comments / by J. Lockhart Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ]))' erosion^ were seen to project. The posterior white columns were soft only at their deep parts which overlay the transverse commissure. The other columns were apparently sound. On a level with the upper roots of the same (second pair of dorsal) nerves, the transparent area of degeneration was prolonged backward on the right side, as well as on the left; and for a distance of a few lines up the cord the whole inner portion of each cervix cornu, (or the parts between the transverse com- missure and the caput cornu) were destroyed by irregular patches of granular degeneration, of different shapes and sizes, which presented a very striking resemblance to the holes in a moth-eaten cloth, as represented in fig. 28 [b b' h b'), &c. The spaces, however, were not vacant, but filled with a finely granular and transpai'ent substance,—the granules, as I found in former cases, being mostly toward their centres. On the left side these morbid appearances gradually diminished on ascending the cord, and disappeared altogether at the com- mencement of the first pair of dorsal nerves; while on the right side they remained nearly similar to those represented on the left side in fig. 28. The same state of degeneration affected the parts surrounding the central canal (b fig. 28), and extended on the right side across the anterior commissure around an enlarged and unhealthy looking blood-vessel entering through the anterior median fissure (s). (10) This condition of the grey substance, with that of the white columns last described, continued upward through the whole of the space from which the first dorsal nerves take their origin; the morbid area around the canal being larger for a few lines, as represented in fig. 29 {b). From this a narrow streak of the same substance {b') was seen to extend backward along the inner side of the base of the horn, on the left side. At the upper roots of the same nerve (first dorsal) this large morbid space almost entirely disappeared, the streak on the left side continuing, with some small patches on the right. Its decrease, however, was only for a few lines; for at the commencement of the eighth cervical nerves, it began again to extend itself, eroding, as it were, and destroying the under surface of the posterior white columns, which were softened to a considerable degree. Some minute spots of degeneration were seen here and there in other parts of the grey substance. These various lesions continued to a greater or less extent through the rest of this region (the eighth cervi- cal), the morbid si)aces along the inner edges of the ijosterior horns increasing and diniinisliiug alternately on the opposite sides, varying in shape in almost every section, and encroaching.