358 DISEASES OF THE SPINAL CORD AND ITS MEMBRANES. 



absence of swelling, the trifling amount of pain on handling 

 the parts, by the existence of diminished sensibility in the 

 limbs, by the mode of its production, and the rapidity in many 

 cases of recovery. 



The treatment pursued was, rest with perfect quietude, tho 

 exhibition of a little laxative medicine, and the application two 

 or three times daily, for an hour at a time, of rugs which had 

 been wrung from hot water. Recovery was in a few cases 

 rapid, in others the animals were not flt for work for several 

 week-s ; in none, however, did the symptoms return. 



II. Spinal Inflammation — Spinal Meningitis — Myelitis — 

 Inflammation of the Cord and its Membranes. 



Definition. — Tvflammaiion of the sjy'ival cord and its en- 

 velopes. 



Varieties, Nature, and Causation. — The structures contained 

 within the spinal £canal, the cord, and its coverings are, in 

 common with^the analogous contents of the cranial cavity, 

 liable to inflammatory action, which, when occurring, may 

 terminate in resolution, or in alteration of tissue, and the pro- 

 duction of heterologous and additional elements. Although, in 

 the great majority of cases of inflammation affecting the cord 

 and its coverings, it is extremely difticult, if not impossible, 

 accurately to distinguish the relative extent to which the 

 morbid process has invaded those different structures, it is, 

 nevertheless, highly probable that the one may be much 

 diseased while the other is comparatively healthy. Sometimes, 

 even with the animals which occupy our attention, it is possible 

 to form in* those cases a Avonderfully correct idea of the chief 

 seat of the localization of the diseased action. 



Spinal inflammation is the term ordinarily employed to 

 indicate inflammation more or less actively distributed in both 

 cord and coverings ; spinal meningitis being used to indicate 

 a similar process occurring in the meninges or membranes of 

 the cord ; and myelitis where the inflammation is conflned to 

 tho substance proper of the cord. For our present purpose it 

 will be sufticiontto regard the phenomena of inflammatory action 

 in connection with the structures contained within the spinal 

 canal as associated Avith, or representing the condition recog- 

 nised under, the term spinal inflanniuition ; and this condition 



