Ranson, Degeneration in Spinal Nerves. 269 



the atrophic nerve fibers which these authors saw in the central 

 stumps and noted that they considered the ventral roots normal, 

 and the dorsal roots altered only to the extent of the loss of a small 

 portion of the fibers. The altered elements seen in the nerve were 

 to be found neither in the ventral nor dorsal roots. But within 

 the ganglia and especially at their distal extremities before the 

 afferent fibers have mixed with those of the ventral roots the 

 changes are seen at their maximum; hence the atrophy seen in the 

 nerve stumps affects chiefly the peripheral branches of the T-pro- 

 cesses. This has recently been confirmed by Kleist ('04). 



Asymmetry of the spinal cord due to atrophy of the correspond- 

 ing halves of the segments associated with the injured nerves is 

 an almost constant finding (not present in the cases reported by 

 TiJRCK '53 and Friedreich '73), and is due to changes in both 

 the gray and the white substance. The only change in the white 

 substance which occurs with sufficient regularity to be of signifi- 

 cance is found in the dorsal funiculus; atrophy of the ventral and 

 lateral funiculi have been occasionally reported. (Atrophy of 

 the ventral funiculus, Vulpian '69 and Kahler and Pick '80; of 

 the lateral funiculus, Switalski '01; atrophy uniform over the 

 entire half of the area of the white substance, Leyden '76, 

 Dejerine and Mayor '78.) That some loss of substance should 

 occur in these fiber tracts is a necessary corollary of the cell 

 destruction which, as we shall see, occurs in the ventral and dorsal 

 cornua and in Clarke's column; but this could lead to only a very 

 slight atrophy. It is more probable that these few observations 

 depend upon a natural asymmetry of the cord or a too superficial 

 examination of the ma4:erial. Friedlander and Krause ('86) 

 state that in many of their preparations it seemed as if the entire 

 half of the cross-section were atrophied, but closer study showed 

 that the loss was confined to the gray matter and the dorsal funi- 

 culus. 



As is to be expected from its anatomical relations with the atro- 

 phied dorsal roots, the dorsal funiculus shows a decrease in the 

 area of its cross-section which can be followed cephalad far beyond 

 the segments primarily affected. In only four of the autopsy 

 cases was it reported normal (Vulpian '69, three cases; Fried- 

 reich '73, one case). In some instances it was found reduced to 

 two-thirds its original dimensions. To explain this, Homen ('90) 

 asserts that the individual fibers are smaller on the operated side; 



