Paralyses, cerebral, bulbar and spinal ; a manual of diagnosis for students and practitioners / by H. Charlton Bastian.

  • Bastian, H. Charlton.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Paralyses, cerebral, bulbar and spinal ; a manual of diagnosis for students and practitioners / by H. Charlton Bastian. 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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    PARALYSES><(S^^BI^L, BULBAR, AND SPINAL: A MANUAL OF DIAGNOSIS. Paralysis and convulsions are opposite phenomena, the one depen- dent npon impeded conduction of motor stimuli to muscles, owing to some morbid conditions in or acting upon certain nerves, parts of the spinal cord, or encephalon ; the other dependent upon an exalted transmission of motor stimuli to the muscles affected, owing to the existence of abnormal states of certain portions of the encephalon or spinal cord, but mostly of the former. Thus paralysis is a sign of defective action, convulsion a result of exalted or perverted action in some portion of the nervous system. In diseases of the encephalon convulsions often coexist with para- lyses. In morbid conditions of the spinal cord and of the peripheral nerves convulsions are but rarely met with, and when they occur they are only very indirect consequences of such conditions. Paralyses of different kinds are, however, common and direct conse- quences not only of diseases of the encephalon, but also of the spinal cord and of peripheral nerves. Although the word paralysis ought, strictly speaking, to be limited to the results of disabilities occurring in the parts of the nervous system where outgoing currents originate or through which they are transmitted, still custom has sanctioned the use of the same term as a designation for analogous defects resulting from fimctional disabili- ties in sensory nerves and sensory centres, or in the intervening tracks for such impressions. We must, therefore, claim to be allowed to speak here of sensory paralyses as well as of motor paralyses. These two kinds of defect are often to some extent conjoined in the several forms of encephalic, spinal, and peripheral paralysis. The different modes and degrees of such association constitute some of the principal differentia by which