Successful brain grafting / by W. Gilman Thompson.

  • William Gilman Thompson
Date:
[1890]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Successful brain grafting / by W. Gilman Thompson. 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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    nerve grafting and of nerve suture after complete section have varied greatly in the hands of different operators, but, despite many discouraging failures, there is no doubt that in man, as well as in the lower animals, nerve fibers may re- unite when sutured even after secondary degeneration has occurred, and they exhibit restoration of function. For this to occur, however, the nerves must be in communication with some trophic center. Nerve grafting does not succeed so well as nerve sutures in favorable cases. It occurred to me recently, while studying cerebral localization in the lower animals, that it would be interesting to graft a piece of brain tissue from one side of a dog’s brain to the other, or from one animal’s brain into another’s, and study its vitality. Of course, I had no expectation of being able to restore abolished function by the operation, but the ques- tion of vitality of the brain tissue and the course of its de- generation is a subject which is of very wide interest. The first experiments were preliminary, made in order to ascer- tain whether the transplanted brain would be immediately absorbed or would slough away. Experiment I.—Two large dogs, A and B, were simultane- ously trephined over the right occipital region ; 8 c. c. of brain tissue were excised in one piece and exchanged ; the piece from dog A was put into the opening in the brain of dog B, and vice versa. On the third day both dogs were killed, and the trans- planted pieces of brain tissue looked normal, and in each case they were so adherent and firmly covered with fibrous exuda- tion that it was impossible to pull them off with forceps with- out laceration. Total blindness of the eye opposite the lesion resulted in each dog, as was expected. Experiment II.—A cat and a dog were simultaneously tre- phined, and 3-5 c. c. of brain tissue were removed from the dog’s left occipital region and transplanted into an opening of the same size in the cat’s left occipital region. Three days later the cat was killed. The transplanted dog’s brain was found