Lectures on the diseases of the nervous system / Delivered at La Salpêtrière. By J.M. Charcot. 2d series. Translated and edited by George Sigerson.
- Jean-Martin Charcot
- Date:
- 1881
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the diseases of the nervous system / Delivered at La Salpêtrière. By J.M. Charcot. 2d series. Translated and edited by George Sigerson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![are, for the most part, due to the researches conducted in accord- ance with my advice by M. Pierret, assistant in my wards. These labours have been made the subject of two memoirs published in the ' Archives de Physiologic' ] I shall apply myself only to point- ing out to you the most important points which have there been elucidated. I have given you to understand that the lesion of the posterior columns of the cord, to which belong the symptoms of locomotor ataxia, do not indiscriminately affect all the parts of these fasciculi, but strictly occupy certain regions which it now behoves us to determine. Fig. i. Fig. 2. Sclerosis limited to the median or Goll's columns. Fig. 1.—Cervical region. Fig. 2.—Dorsal region. It had long been remarked that fasciculated and ascending sclerosis of the posterior fasciculi, such as is seen, for instance, in the cervical enlargement, in cases where the cord is compressed in a point of the dorsal region, owing to Pott's disease, does not result, except under special circumstances, in the production of ataxic symptoms (motor incoordination and lightning pains) in the upper extremities. Now, this consecutive sclerosis affects exclusively, in such cases, the median or Goll's columns. Hence, that fact had already made it seem likely that, in ataxia, Goll's columns should be excluded from all participation in the production of the essential symptoms (figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, also Plate I, fig. 1). Careful scrutiny of the lesions present in the cervico-dorsal regions, in cases of generalised locomotor ataxia (that is, ataxia 1 Pierret, Notes sur la sclerose des cordons posterieurs dans l'Ataxie locomotrice progressive, 'Archives de Physiologie,' 1872, p. 364. Notes sur un cas de sclerose primitive du faisceau median des cordons posterieurs,' ibid., 1873, P- 74-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21045884_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
