Twentieth Century Practice (Volume 11) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DISEASES OF THE SPINAL CORD. INTRODUCTION. The designation "diseases of the spinal cord" is derived from gross anatomy. It is now known to us that the spinal cord consists of four different portions, viz., (1) Processes from cerebral cells, (2) processes from cells which are present in the spinal ganglia and perhaps also in the periphery, (3) cells whose processes extend into the peripheral nerves, and (4) cells which, together with their processes, lie in the spinal cord. It is therefore conceivable that no boundary can be drawn either between the diseases of the spinal cord and those of the brain, or between the hitter and those of the peripheral nerves. Besides, there are many affections which involve the brain and the spinal cord at the same time. Thus it happens that various affections are grouped together under the vague designation of " diseases of the spinal cord," while it is to a great extent a matter of choice whether the disease is to be classified or not under this heading. Tabes, for example, is usually regarded as a disease of the spinal cord because the most evident lesions have their seat there. It is, however, really a disease of the entire nervous system, because there are portions of the brain as well as of the peripheral nervous system which are primarily diseased. Multiple sclerosis has been considered in this work among the diseases of the brain, but it might with equal propriety be regarded as a disease of the spinal cord, since both these nervous centres are affected. Many poisons act injuriously upon the brain and the nerves at the same time, for example alcohol, or it may be only a matter of degree and duration whether changes are found in the nerves alone or in the spinal cord also. To a truly scientific mind, the classification of diseases acc...