274 REVIEWS. 



that due to the muscular spasm caused by galvanism persisted in this patient, 

 although the white matter, L e. the posterior and antero-lateral columns had but 

 few and altered fibres remaining." 



It is obvious from what has been already brought forward, that va- 

 rious physiologists have had, for a long time past, a tendency to adopt 

 the two propositions so clearly enunciated, and so well discussed by Dr. 

 Brown- Sequard. The slow accumulation of well observed pathological 

 cases, careful microscopic investigation and experimental researches 

 (which although often contradictory, yet on the whole tended in the 

 same direction), have paved the way for the general acceptance of these 

 conclusions : viz., that sensitive impressions do not pass along the 

 posterior columns, but that the grey matter is the main channel for 

 their transmission to the encephalon. It would be foreign to our 

 purpose to enter into any critical discussion of the views of those who, 

 at the present time, dissent from those propositions, but we conceive 

 that it is right to do so with, regard to one author, because his opi- 

 nions come before the British public with much prestige, and because 

 not only the justly great reputation of the author as a microscopical 

 anatomist, but also the fact of his work having been selected (and 

 very rightly so) for publication, by the Council of the New Syden- 

 ham Society, give in the eyes of many readers very great, perhaps 

 undue weight and authority to his opinions. 



" In my opinion," says Professor Schroeder van der Kolk, " the grey matter 

 in the spinal cord serves solely for motion, the posterior rather for reflex action, and 

 the coordination of movement, while sensation is transmitted upwards exclusively 

 through the posterior and lateral medullary columns. That such is the case I in- 

 ferred especially from the phenomena produced by strychnine in a dog; in slighter 

 attacks the hind feet acted first, and subsequently continued more rigid, the animal 

 standing upon them, with the body inclined obliquely forward. Not only during 

 these convulsions, but even when the animal lay more than once upon the ground, 

 with its feet stretched out in tetanic rigidity, it had not lost consciousness, of which 

 my audience were witnesses with me; thus when a white cloth was accidentally drawn 

 from one side of the apartment to the other, the dog followed it with his eyes and 

 head, while it appeared from all that occurred that he did not experience the least 

 pain. We also know that after excessive doses of strychnia, the patients without 

 feeling anything, are suddenly seized with abnormal movements and convulsions. 

 After the death of the dog I examined the spinal cord and brain, chiefly with a 

 view to discover any congestion which might have existed in the several parts ; in 

 the brain I met no unusual degree of congestion, but I was particularly struck with 

 a remarkable condition of the grey matter of the lumbar bulb ; it presented in fact, 

 numerous small effusions of blood, while in the medullary portion ( ?) nothing ab- 

 normal was found. In another dog, killed under the influence of strychnine, I found, 

 in the grey matter of the lumbar portion, aneurysmal dilatation of the capillary 

 vessels, which were, in consequence, on the verge of bursting. Perhaps similar effu- 

 sions had taken place in this instance, but that in the sections I prepared I had not 

 met with them. In both cases, however, the two horns of grey matter were most 

 beautifully injected with blood, as was evident after the sections were dried and 

 placed under Canada balsam. Hence it would appear that, after the administration 

 of strychnine, great congestion and irritation take place in the grey matter, which 

 in the situations where they are most fully developed, as in the loins, may pass into 

 effusion or dilatation of the blood-vessels, and still all this occurs without any sen- 

 sations, without any pain. Were the grey matter in the spinal cord sensitive, or did 



