Diseases of the spinal cord.

  • Bramwell, Byrom, Sir, 1847-1931.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the spinal cord. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    is sufficiently copious to compress the cord, myelitis may be developed, and death may result from exhaustion, bed-sores, or cystitis. Diagnosis.—The diagnosis of a well-marked case should present no difficulty. The characteristic features are the sudden occurrence of symptoms of meningeal irritation and the absence of fever at the commencement of the attack. A spinal meningeal haemorrhage is at once distinguished from an intra-cranial hemorrhage by the fact that the symp- toms are entirely spinal. Acute meningitis resembles meningeal haemorrhage, in- asmuch as symptoms of spinal irritation are rapidly developed in both conditions ; the distinctive points are: (a) that in meningeal haemorrhage the onset may be instantaneous, and is usually much more rapid than in acute meningitis ; and (b) that meningeal haemorrhage is not ushered in by fever. The points of differential importance between meningeal haemorrhage and hemorrhage into the substance of the cord, have already been considered. (See page 281.) Treatment.—In the earlier stages the treatment recom- mended for the arrest of an intra-medullary haemorrhage (see page 165) is to be adopted. Subsequently the case is to be treated as a case of acute meningitis. (See page 266). INTRA- and extra-medullary tumours. New formations rarely originate in the cord itself, but they not unfrequently spring from the bones and membranes. intra-medullary tumours. Morbid Anatomy.—Gliomata, tubercular nodules, glio- sarcomata, and syphilitic gummata have been found in the substance of the cord; they are usually of small size, but ' elongated tumours which have stretched, in various degrees of thickness, throughout the whole cord, from the conus medullaris to the medulla oblongata' have been met with.— (Erb.) Intra-medullary tumours are usually solitary. They may invade any part of the transverse section, and may originate