96 Dr. H. C. Bastian. On the Relations of Sensory [May 2, 



(a.) Cerebral Functional Defects. To this cerebral category belong 

 cases of the so-called hysterical type, in which there appear to be 

 temporary defects in the nutritional condition of the kinaesthetic 

 centres leading to various temporary and curable forms of paralysis 

 (either monoplegias, hemiplegias, or paraplegias), such as I have 

 elsewhere described,* always associated with a corresponding loss of 

 muscular sense and, more or less, of defect in common sensibility. 

 These forms of functional paralysis are often combined with well- 

 marked complete hemiana?sthesia, either single or doable, presumably 

 due to a co-existing nutritional defect in the sensory region of the 

 internal capsule. 



Strangely enough, in one class of these cases the patients are 

 found to be capable of performing movements so long as their eyes 

 are open, though they are quite unable to perform even the simplest 

 movements with the affected limbs as soon as the eyes are closed ;f 

 results which are, I think, to be explained by the existence of a minor 

 degree of that nutritional degradation of the kinsesthetic centres 

 which, in the other class, produces paralysis whether the eyes are 

 open or closed. The minor degradation would seem to permit of the 

 kinsesthetic centres being roused by a slightly stronger stimulus 

 coming to them from the visual centres of a person whose eyes are 

 open, though they are no longer capable of being roused by the 

 hypothetically weaker stimulus coming from the visual centres of a 

 person whose eyes are closed. 



(6.) Spinal Functional Defects. It is into this category that, in 

 my opinion, the forms of paralysis fall that have been produced by 

 Drs. Mott and Sherrington as a result of section of all the sensory 

 roots of a limb. 



We have been long familiar with forms of paralysis due to struc- 

 tural lesions affecting the great ganglion cells in the anterior cornua 

 of the cord ; those, for instance, due to polio-myelitis or to focal 

 lesions of different kinds involving the anterior cornua. 



Three years ago, moreover, I gave reasons for believing that there 

 are cases of functional paralysis of spinal type, due to defects in 

 these same regions of the spinal cord (examples of which were 

 recorded), that ought to be distinctly separated from those of cerebral 

 origin commonly known as " hysterical."! We have now, as I am 

 inclined to maintain, in the experiments of Drs. Mott and Sherrington, 

 an experimental proof of the existence of one of these forms of 

 functional paralysis of spinal origin. 



Instead of a lowered functional activity in cerebral kinassthetin 

 centres (interfering with volition), we have here a lowered functional 



* ' Various Forms of Hysterical or Functional Paralysis,' London, 1893. 

 f Loc. cit., pp. 2228. 

 J Loc. cit., pp. 96116. 



