Lectures on diseases of the nervous system : delivered at Guy's Hospital / by Samuel Wilks.

  • Wilks, Samuel, Sir, 1824-1911.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diseases of the nervous system : delivered at Guy's Hospital / by Samuel Wilks. 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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    otlier, If the cause of the paralysis should be below the head as in the spinal marrow, the parts below are paralysed, but above this the nerves are not in a direct line, but are inverted, passing to the other side like the letter X, and in this way one side or the other may be paralysed. This has been the uniform experience of all observers during the many centuries since this was written. PARALYSIS OF ONE SIDE AND APHASIA Paralysis of Motion and Sensation of one half of the Body.—A perfect hemiplegia, according to our present views of the physiology of the nervous system, can imply nothing less than a disease or temporary impairment of the complete half of the spinal cord, or of all the centres which rule over the movements of half of the body; or if not this, it must imply disease of some one centre which governs all those minor ones which do possess the motor power. In the same way a loss of sensation of half of the body would indicate disease of the whole of the sensory tract or of that region into which all the sensory nerves pass. ISTow, as a matter of observation, I am unaccjuainted with any organic disease which can produce either form of paralysis, and as regards that of motion there is really no such affection as a perfect hemiplegia, either of the organic or functional form. The so-called hemij)legia is of various kinds, amongst which a functional hemi- plegia as seen in hysteria is quite different from that arising from disease of the cord or the central ganglia. Also, a true and perfect hemiansesthesia certainly does exist, but, as fax as I have seen, is nearly always associated with that form of hemiplegia which is styled hysterical. Loss of sensation on one side from an organic cause has never, in my experience, been complete. Hemiplegia from spinal disease or injury would aiise from lesion of one side of the spinal cord, all the parts below being paralysed. For example, a man had a complete severance of the restiform body of the medulla. There was a partial paralysis of motion of the arm and leg, but sensation was unimpaired. The origin of the glosso-pharyngeal and pneumogastric nerves were involved, causing complete inability to swallow. He also had constant hiccough, and died a few hours after the accident. Hemiplegia from inflammation of one hemisphere of the fora^in.— This is a cause of paralysis which I was at one time reluctant to admit, but have not hesitated to do so after Mr Hutchinson's 3