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.
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![channel may he developed, which becomes permanent, just as collateral channels ai’e formed for the production of bilateral associated movements. Lastly, there can be little doubt that muscular sense-impressions pass up the same side. The degenerations which result:—From section of the roots of the cauda equina'”' in the Monkey I have shown to be limited to the same side. There are two sets of fibres in the posterior columns, a long system—the fibi’es of the columns of Goll, and another system—short fibres which ascend a variable distance in the postero-external column. Some of these fibres are connected with the cells of Clarke’s column ; this has also been shown by Tooth, Bechterew,+ Eamon y Cajal, and Kolliker. The fibres end in fine collaterals (according to the last tw'o observers) around the cells of Clarke’s column. According to Bechterew, also, fibres pass to cells of the posterior horn. So far, then, no decussation can have taken place, and the anatomical evidence, according to my experience, of an examination of many thousands of specimens, does not warrant the inference that fibres derived from the posterior roots decussate to any extent in the spinal cord. All this quite agrees with the results obtained by Horsley and Gotch ; the small reaction wliich they obtained from the opposite posterior column on stimulating, may have been due to the commissural connections between the columns of Clarke on the two sides; moreover, hemisections, when quite unilateral, show no degeneration in the posterior column of the opposite side. There is little doubt, according to the observations of the before-named observers and my own, that the fibres of the direct cerebellar tract arise from the cells of Clarke’s column. Bechterew concludes from his experiments, and from other data which he cites, that the fibres of the direct cerebellar tract, also of Goll’s column and of Burdach’s column, serve for a second centripetal conducting tract for the main- tenance of balance, and are possibly connected in a way with the muscles. The direct cerebellar tract ends above in the restiform body which goes to the cerebellum. According to Bechterew, this has nothing to do with touch, nor has the posterior median column, which is supposed, however, by some authorities to be con- nected with the muscular sense. We have then only one other long tract, which degenerates right up the cord, which can convey other sensations, such as touch, heat and cold, and painful sensations. This is the antero-lateral; it degenerates on the same side above a hemisection. In my opinion no suflicient evidence has been brought forward by Gowers for his views with regard to the origin of this tract from fibres coming from the opposite side of the cord ; nor by Edixger for his view that these fibres come from cells of the posterior horn of the opposite side, the nerve processes of which decussate over in the anterior commissure. In fact, like the fibres of the direct cerebellar tract, they aj)pear to me to come from cells of the same side. The experi- ments of Gotch and Horsley support this view. The electrical reaction of the lateral column of the same side on stimulation of a ])osterior root is four times that of the * ‘ Jiraiii,’ loc. cit. t Liic. cit. 11 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22297066_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
