PARALYSIS — PALSY. 39 



or lacerated. As in the case of encephalitis, the arachnoid appears 

 to be the especial seat of the inflammation. 



M. Boulet found the membrane in an intensely injected state, to 

 the extent of fifteen inches, in a horse who died of paralysis, with 

 some effusion underneath it. In respect, however, to the quantity 

 of fl«id we may find under the arachnoid, we must bear in mind 

 the recorded fact — one already quoted — that such effusions may and 

 do take place after death ; so that unless the examination be imme- 

 diate, such a circumstance would be regarded suspiciously. The pia 

 mater may be found in a state of inflammation, a case in which the 

 medulla will participate in the diseased action, and in consequence 

 undergo more or less change. Finally, the medulla itself may 

 prove to be in an inflammatory condition. Dupuy mentions a re- 

 markable case of a stallion, affected with complete loss of voluntary 

 motion, whose spinal marrow had become so softened (from inflam- 

 mation]), that it ran about like so much purulent matter. 



Touching the modus operandi of humid cold as a producer of 

 paralysis, its effects may be local, or, we can imagine, it may ope- 

 rate in a reflex manner through the agency of the general nervous 

 system. In man, spinal meningitis most rarely occurs without the 

 brain being similarly affected. In respect to the cases of paralysis 

 which now and then occur in the stable, among young horses 

 especially, I hardly know to what to ascribe their production. As 

 in the brain so in the spinal marrow, inflammation may occasion 

 effusion of serum, lymph, or purulent matter, or may produce 

 softening of the medullary substance ; and any of these effects may 

 prove the proximate cause of paralytic disorder. 



Diagnosis. — M. Bouley's interesting researches into the '' Le- 

 sions of the Spinal Marrow," have put us in possession of some 

 valuable marks of distinction between such cases as arise from the 

 affection of the medulla or its membranes — idiopathic paraplegia — 

 and those having their origin in indigestion and other remote 

 causes; without however in cases of disease pretending to say 

 from the symptoms, what the precise nature of the lesion may be. 

 In the first case, the paraplegia is awfully sudden in its attack, no 

 warning or sign of its approach being observable ; and comes on 

 during or immediately after work — draught in particular. The 



