332 PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. ' 



injury healed. In another case, the paralysis was more ex- 

 tensive, having been produced by an injury at the lower part 

 of the neck. There was, at first, a total loss of voluntary 

 power over the lower extremities, trunk, and hands, slight 

 remaining voluntary power in the wrists, rather more in the 

 elbows, and still more in the shoulders. The muscles of the 

 ribs were also paralyzed, and the breathing was carried on 

 entirely by means of the diaphragm.* If the injury, in the 

 last case, had been higher in the neck, above the origin of 

 the nerve which leads to the diaphragm, this muscle also 

 would have been paralyzed, and death would instantly have 

 taken place, for want of power of respiration. 



760. The higher any injury occurs to the spinal cord, the 

 more extensive must be the bad consequences; that is, the 

 nearer the root the interruption happens, the greater num- 

 ber of its branches must be affected. An injury, or a curva- 

 ture, may cause pressure upon the whole or a part of this 

 nerve, or upon a part of its branches only, and thus interrupt 

 or interfere with the communication between the brain and 

 the organs to which these branches lead. In this way the 

 lungs and the stomach are sometimes disturbed or enfeebled, 

 and difficulty of breathing or dyspepsia produced. 



761. At first, Mr. J. ( 759, p. 329) suffered great pain 

 and palsy of the lower limbs. But the injury was not per- 

 manent; the pressure on the cord was gradually and slowly 

 removed, the pain was relieved in all the parts, and the power 

 of motion returned to the muscles successively ; and, finally, 

 he regained the use of all his muscles, except those which 

 lift the feet. These were palsied and useless to him ; and 

 during the twenty-five remaining years of his life, though 

 he could move his thighs and legs, and press his feet down- 

 ward, he could not bend them upward on the ankle ; and 

 when he walked, the foot hung down, and the toes struck 

 the ground first, instead of the heel. Probably a fibre or 

 branch of the motory nerve, that leads to the muscles which 

 bend the ankle, was injured beyond recovery. 



* Carpenter's Physiology, 178. 



