Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.

a case that does not confirm the foregoing, nor are there amongst the numerous cases of lesion of the spinal cord, which are in the records of this hospital, any which show that one part or column of the cord, when affected, is attended with anaesthesia, without loss of motion, though, as we have seen, the loss of mo- tion usually occurs without anaesthesia." But we must bear in mind, that in paraplegia from disease of and about the spinal cord, the spinal nerve roots, as they leave the cord on either side, are not unfrequently implicated near their junction with the cord. Thus, Dr. Abercrombie cites the case of Count de Lor- dat, which was a paralytic affection of the left arm, following an injury to the neck from a fall, and the opposite arm became numb. By the post mortem examination this was explained ; for there was found, not only induration of the cord, but " a compact and tendinous condition about the roots of those spinal nerves, owing to a thickening of their investing membranes." The former produced the paralysis of motion, the latter the numbness. There are also, now and then, cases of cervical paralysis, which see under that head. 2. The second class of paraplegias are those in which the loss of sensation is greater than that of motion. The cases under this category naturally arrange themselves into two groups, ac- cording to their seat of lesion ; the one being peripheral, affecting the nerve trunks in their course; the other being central, and in that case it is encephalic instead of spinal. These form the sec- ond and third classes. The first group, where the cause is pe- ripheral, is the second class as reckoned by Dr. Gull; while the second group, which is caused by brain lesion, makes the third class. The second class, then, are known by the preponderating ancesthesia arising from peripheral causes. As the grandest ex- ample in this (second) class of paraplegic diseases, is quoted the epidemic of Paris, in the spring of 1828, so graphically de- scribed by Dr. Chomel. This curious affection usually set in with an extraordinary and exquisite exaltation of the general sensibility, which, however, gave place, after a few hours or days, to a general diminution of sensibility, and this proceeded even to the extent of a complete abolition of sensation. The power of 44*