A case of porencephaly / by Alec Fraser.

  • Fraser, Alec, 1853-1909.
Date:
[1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of porencephaly / by Alec Fraser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    end of the callosum and through the occipital lobes, thus laying hare the entire ventricular cavity, except its so-called descending horn. The first thing that strikes the observer is the complete absence of the septum pellucidum, due in this instance, without doubt, to the free passage of the cerebro-spinal fluid through the aperture to the ventral sub-arachnoid spaces. However, it is no unfrequent occurrence for the septum to be absent in the normal developing brain (see my diagrams of the foetal human brain in Vol. xii. of the “Trans. Roy. Acad, of Med. in Ireland’^), and perforations in it are of frequent occurrence in the adult brain, thus throwing the adjacent ventricles into free communication otherwise than by the foramina of Munro. The next strik- ing matter is the little if any change in the corpus callosum, except, perhaps, at its splenial extremity, a fact of signi- ficant meaning in the absence of so much of the true cortex. The amount of coronal fibres absent can also be judged of by comparing the healthy with the affected side. On the latter the frontal extremity of the coi’ona is very evident, sweeping into its corresponding lobe, while the thinned out temporal extremity is seen arching over the so-called descending horn (in reality ascending). The early presence of the intervening parietal and occipital divisions of the corona is made evident by the position of the two atrophied bands of fibres, seen in Fig. 2 at their place of exit from the striatum, and in Fig. 3 at their place of entrance into the affected hemisphere. 't he amount of striatum and insula present can also be better judged of than from the lateral view. The body and pillars of the fornix are considerably diminished on the affected side, and corresponding there was a similar diminu- tion in the hippocampus major, as compared with that of the healthy one. Uhe line of junction between the thickened ependyma of the ventricular cavity on the one hand and the membranous wall of the sac and cortical grey on the other can be followed on both Figs. The other parts to be seen on the floor of the ventricular cavity, the caudate nucleus, the anterior part of the healthy thalamus, and the similar atrophied portion of the adjacent one, the choroid plexuses, the posterior and descending (ascending) horns can all be noted. 4. Ventral View (Plate I., Figs. 1 and 2).—From this view, on comparing the affected with the healthy side, can be judged the diminution mainly in the third inferior frontal