On sclerosis of the spinal cord : including locomotor ataxy, spastic spinal paralysis, and other system-diseases of the spinal cord, their pathology, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment / by Julius Althaus.

Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On sclerosis of the spinal cord : including locomotor ataxy, spastic spinal paralysis, and other system-diseases of the spinal cord, their pathology, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment / by Julius Althaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    cases the so-called reaction of degeneration (Erb) or wasting-test is noticed, while in others the remaining por- tion of the muscles responds normally to faradisation as well as to galvanisation. The second stage of the disease is ushered in, about six or nine months after the beginning of the first, by an analogous affection of the lower extremities. There may also be pins and needles and numbness in the legs, but the principal symptoms are again loss of power, twitches of the muscles, with rigidity and exaggerated tendon re- flexes. The legs are rigidly extended, and there is tremor on attempting movements. After a time the muscles be- come atrophied, and there is a proportionate decrease of rigidity and reflex excitability. The bladder and rec- tum continue to act normally, and there is no tendency to bed-sores. The third stage supervenes more or less rapidly with symptoms of labio-glosso-laryngeal paralysis ; the patient becomes unable to masticate, to swallow, and to speak ; respiration and circulation eventually suffer, and death takes place within from one to three years from the commence- ment of the disease. Ferrier^ has reported cases in which the medulla ob- longata appeared to be the first to suffer, and where the affection subsequently crept down to the upper and lower portions of the cord. Where the roots of the spinal acces- sory nerve in the cervical portion of the cord suffer, there may be such rigidity in the trapezius and sterno-mastoid muscles that the head appears completely fixed. In such a case, in which I was consulted in April, 1884, the diag- nosis of ossification of the muscles had been made ! If the temporal muscles are rigid, from the sclerosis affect- ing the muscles supplied by the minor portion of the fifth nerve, the mouth can hardly be opened. Occasionally there is, in place of common atrophy, pseudo-hypertrophy of the ' The Lancet, vol. i., p. 822. 1881.