A contribution to the surgery of the spinal cord.

  • Thorburn, William, Sir, 1861-1923.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to the surgery of the spinal cord. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    fifth vertebra pressing iipon the origin of the fiftli root of the right side. The lungs were intensely congested, and portions of the left lower lobe sank when thrown into water. The other organs presented nothing of interest. This case, like the preceding one, is an instance of oblique injury to the cord, the direction of the obliquity being re- versed, and the fifth root escaping on the left side only; and it thus offers another illustration of the distribution of the motor and sensory branches of this root. The area in which sensation was retained was less than in Cases 3 and 4, owing possibly to some of the lower sensory fibres of the left fifth root being also in- volved in the lesion. Case 6.—Injury to iii^perpart ofbracMcd region—Paralysis hdoiu deltoid nuclei —Death. Fig. 3.—Spinal cord from Case 5. seen from behind, showing compression, extending obli- quely from above the origin of the sixth cervical nerve on the left side, upwards, so as to intercept the fifth nerve- root on the right side. A man aged thirty-five was admitted under Mr. Heath's care on June 18, 1887. He had the night before admission fallen down about ten steps on to his head, as evidenced by bruises on the left side of the cranium. As he died in a few hours, I was obliged to obtain my information from Mr. Thompson, the house- surgeon. At the back of the neck was a large amount of effused blood, but the spines of the vertebrse were distinctly felt, that of the sixth cervical being apparently displaced slightly to the right. Beyond this there was no deformity, nor any difficulty in movement, and the man complained of but slight pain in the back of the neck. The lower limbs and trunk were completely paralysed ; the arms were held rigid with the elbows abducted, and the hands lying on the epigastrium extended and prone. Anaesthesia was complete below a point about two inches above the nipples, being also complete over the shoulders and in the upper limbs. The pupils were reduced to fine points. The urine was retained and the penis turgid.