“DIE LOKALISATION IM GROSSHIRN”’ 501 
return of the reflex responses of the structures lying below the 
anaemic region of the spinal cord within a period of half an 
hour or an hour. Anatomical transection at this time is not 
attended by cessation of the reflexes. Just as in Sherrington’s 
experiments, trauma qua trauma is not the necessary antecedent 
condition for the onset of spinal shock. But if the circulation 
to the head is restored and the animal is allowed to recover, a 
more or less normal deportment gradually returns. If anatomi- 
cal transection of the cord is done on the following day, or even 
a few hours after re-establishment of the cerebral circulation, 
signs of shock appear immediately. The changes which oc- 
curred in the spinal cord leading to the return of the reflexes 
while the circulation to the head was interrupted were reversible, 
since, to all our tests, they did not greatly outlast the period of 
failure of cerebral and bulbar function. 
There is one other point on which the doctrine of minimal 
deficiency of function comes into conflict with the conclusions 
drawn from the results of more acute experiments. Francois 
Franck and Pitres taught that in mammals tonic movements of 
the skeletal muscles originated from the lower motor cells (e.g., 
basal ganglia) and that the clonic movements originated from 
the higher motor neurones. Epilepsy and epileptiform con- 
vulsions (Hughlings Jackson) are of cortical origin. Gowers 
taught that a spastic paralysis indicated a lesion of the higher 
motor neurones, while a flaccid paralysis indicated a lesion of 
the lower motor neurones. Decerebrate rigidity (Sherrington) 
is due to the activity of lower motor neurones. Horseley reported 
some experiments from his laboratory in which absinthe was 
used to induce convulsions in cats. If the cerebral hemispheres 
were present along with the rest of the central nervous system, 
absinthe produced: clonic convulsions. If the cerebral hemi- 
spheres were removed, absinthe produced tonic convulsions. 
If one cerebral hemisphere was removed and the other left 
intact, clonic convulsions appeared on the opposite side. So 
general has the belief in this hypothesis of the origin of tonic 
and clonic movements become that many have insisted that 
the pyramidal fibers exert an inhibitory action upon the lower 
