546 SPORADIC DISEASES. 



tionecl a case of general paralysis succeeded by congestion of the 

 brain and death in a goat, arising from grief at the loss of her 

 kids ; this may justly be called emotional paralysis. 



The differences existing between reflex paralysis and that 

 from disease of the cord is found in the circumstance that 

 recovery is not at all an infrequent result, and that when death 

 occurs either from the gravity of the primary disease, restless- 

 ness of tlie animal, or other circumstances, no spinal pos^ mortem 

 lesions are discoverable. 



It is supposed by Dr. Brown Sequard that reflex paraplegia is 

 not due to spinal congestion, but to a condition diametrically 

 opposed. He believes that a state of irritation, commencing 

 eccentrically, is propagated along the vasa-motor nerves, of 

 which the result is, primarily, contraction of blood-vessels in, 

 and, secondarily, exclusion of the due amount of blood from, one 

 or more of the three parts following — the spinal cord, the nerves 

 proceeding to or coming from the cord, the muscles, and that 

 the proper activity of the nervous tissue is starved into paralysis 

 from want of blood. This view is founded by Dr. Brown Sequard 

 upon the fact that a state of irritation in the vasa-motor nerves 

 may proceed from a distant point, and produce contraction of 

 the vessels, and upon the fact that traces of organic disease are 

 wanting after death in many cases of reflex paraplegia. 



The following are among the causes of reflex paraplegia in the 

 liuman being: — Irritation of the urethra; inflammation of the 

 bladder ; diseases of the prostate and kidneys ; enteritis ; the 

 presence of worms in the intestines ; dysentery; diphtheria; dis- 

 eases of the lungs and pleura ; the irritation of teething ; irrita- 

 tion of the cutaneous nerves generally following cold and wet; 

 and diseases of the knee joint. 



Four dilferent conditions of the muscles are observed in 

 paralysis in the human being, some of which are also observable 

 in the lower animals : — (1.) A condition little different from 

 that of health, but less firm, less excitable by the galvanic 

 ■stimulus, when the paralyzing lesion is not of an irritative kind, 

 (2.) Complete relaxation of the muscles, characterised by im- 

 perfect nourishment and rapid wasting — so rapid that in a few 

 days the size of a limb experiences a marked diminution. Such 

 muscles scarcely, if at all, respond to the galvanic stimulus. (3.) 

 Contraction of the muscles, with rigidity and wasting (the 



