Results of hemisection of the spinal cord in monkeys / by Frederick W. Mott ; communicated by Professor Schäfer.
- Frederick Walker Mott
- Date:
- 1892
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Results of hemisection of the spinal cord in monkeys / by Frederick W. Mott ; communicated by Professor Schäfer. 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.
49/70 page 47
![section divided the posterior columns, the next the left lateral column, and below this the right lateral column. There was no trace of motility or sensibility on the third day. The liability to severe myelitis, I should think, would probably interfere seriously with accepting the results of this experiment as at all conclusive, especially as Weiss did not use antiseptic precautions. (He speaks of the wounds suppurating.) Weiss agrees, therefore, with Worosciiiloff in assuming that the only tracts for the conduction of sensation and of movements, which have been proved to exist, lie in the lateral column, and also that the anterior columns are incapable of conducting voluntary impulses. He also disagrees with Schiff in reference to conduction in the grey matter. His experiments (he believes) show that the grey matter is incapable of conducting any distance. The results obtained by Homen,* with regard to the sensibility existing in parts behind the hemisection, agree with those of WEiss.t OsAWA considered that there was more diminution on the side of the lesion as com- pared with the opposite side. With regard to this question of hypersesthesia after hemisection of the spinal cord in animals there is a great divergence of opinion. It has not been obtained by all experimenters. Fodera was the first to observe this condition, but he did not invariably find it present. Turck and Brown-Sequard also found it, and the latter considers it an invariahle effect of hemisection. Weiss does not describe this con- dition, nor did Ferrier notice it in his experiment upon the Monkey. I have noticed it twice. It is looked upon by Brown-Sequard and his followers as a proof of the sensory decussation in the cord, especially when taken in conjunction with the fact that they state that there is anoesthesia in the opposite side of the body behind the lesion. LudwiCx and Woroschiloff and Martinotti explain the hyperjesthesia by the removal of influence of certain inhibitory fibres ; but Ferrier states J that the hypersesthesia on the side of lesion is only a sign by contrast of the diminished sensibility on the other side, and as a matter of fact ceases when the other lateral column is similarly divided, and both legs are reduced to the same level of sensibility. This, however, is not strictly true, because Martinotti made a bilateral injury of a * [M. Vl'LPIAN has found the sensory troubles following hemisection different iu different kinds of animals. In the Dog, for example, he found a hypertesthesia in the posterior limb on the side of the hemisection; he believes this to be due to a hyperexcitability produced in the elements of the spinal cord behind the lesion, and only on the side corresponding to it. When it is unilateral, M. VcLPlAN considers the diminution of sensibility on the opposite side as a sort of effect of the hyper- BBsthesia. The slight difference of sensibility that he has found from experiment, appears to him to prove that the sensoiy impulses do not completely decussate in the spinal cord in Mammalia. M. Vulpian considers the grey matter of the s}>inal cord as the principal conductor of sensory impressions. He does not, however, affirm that the white matter does not play any part in this transmission.—‘ Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales,’ vol. 8, p. .384.] t Log. cit. X Log. cit., p. 4G.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22297066_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
