On a case of acute optic neuritis associated with acute myelitis / by Seymour J. Sharkey and J. B. Lawford.

  • Sharkey, Seymour J.
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a case of acute optic neuritis associated with acute myelitis / by Seymour J. Sharkey and J. B. Lawford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    seen to be crowded with small cells, apparently leucocytes, which stained deeply with logwood. The vessels were greatly dilated, their sheaths were occupied by leucocytes, and many of the smaller ones were filled with these cells. The white substance of the nerves themselves was granular, and the large stellate and other cells were seen with great difficulty. Those which could be made out presented no processes, and their protoplasm in many instances had lost its natural granular appearance and was transformed into a homogeneous hyaline substance. All the nerve-cells and their nuclei took the staining either imperfectly or not at all. The pia mater had shared but slightly in the general inflammation. In short, that part of the cord which was soft and hypergemic to the naked eye was the seat of an intense inflammatory process which had not, however, gone so far as to produce gross disorganisation. 2. Cervical region above the seat of disease.—Although at the post-mortem examination this part of the spinal cord presented no abnormal appearances, it did so after it had been hardened, and still more clearly after it had been stained and mounted. The columns of Goll, and these columns alone, were the seat of an acute inflamma- tory process, which was in an earlier stage than the myelitis below. Its distribution was just that of ascending degeneration. 3. Upper lumbar region.—Neither with the naked eye nor by the aid of the microscope could any disease be detected in this part of the cord, either in the lateral regions or elsewhere. 4. The lumbar enlargement presented morbid appear- ances to the naked eye (but only after the sections had been stained and mounted) in the columns of Goll. They appeared to be more transparent than the rest of the posterior columns, and resembled the central grey matter. The microscope showed that this was due to complete granular degeneration of the nerve-fibres; some of the vessels in this region were crowded with leucocytes, but otherwise there was but slight evidence of inflammation.