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MULTIPLE NEUROMATA OF THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. 765 
z.e. areas in which the normal framework of the cord structure was retained. Such 
areas of sclerosis had many of the characters of areas of degeneration in disseminated 
sclerosis. Though the same columns were affected in nearly all the levels of the 
cord, this was in such varying proportions, and separated by intervals in which 
no transition could be traced, that the significance of ascending and descending 
degeneration could not be ascribed to the degeneration. A further similarity to dis- 
seminated sclerosis existed in the presence of the thickened vessels on transverse 
and longitudinal sections, and further, in the presence, in varying proportions, of 
naked axis-cylinders. No compound granular cells were found in the sclerosed areas, 
an indication that the process of sclerosis had run its course some time previously. 
In the upper cervical segments there was slight degeneration of the column 
of Burdach near the median septum—frequently lozenge or spindle-shaped; the 
tracts of Gowers and of Flechsig were also slightly sclerosed to an extent coinciding 
with the posterior column degeneration, and there was distinct degeneration in the 
tract of Helweg on one side. In the lower cervical segments there was a slight 
tendency to degeneration in the direct pyramidal tract on one side, and the crossed 
pyramidal on the other, and again slight degeneration in postero-mesial columns, tracts 
of Gowers and of Flechsig. Throughout the various levels of the dorsal cord, there was 
a very definite area of sclerosis between the tract of Gowers and that of Flechsig on 
both sides, together with a slight degree of degeneration in the columns of Burdach 
adjoining the median septum. ‘Throughout the lumbo-sacral region, the fibrosis was 
so extensive in the white matter that it was impossible to distinguish areas in which 
sclerosis may have been present independent of the fibrosis, except in the postero- 
mesial columns, which again showed slight degeneration near the median septum. 
In some parts of the cord in the posterior columns there was a remarkable twisting 
of the fibres. The fibres seemed to twine round upon themselves and to run, 
as it were, around an irregular axis parallel to the longitudinal axis of the cord, 
and then in successive serial sections the normal orientation of the fibres was 
re-assumed. Such appearances were accompanied by a rarefaction of the tissue, 
not amounting to even slight sclerosis. Similar appearances have frequently been 
noted in the posterior columns in cases of disseminated sclerosis. 
I].—MEpDULLA OBLONGATA AND Pons. 
As a preliminary to a description of the nodules in the medulla oblongata and 
pons, it is necessary to state that they were definitely distinguished from the nodules 
in the spinal cord in that the fibres composing them stained specifically neither with silver 
nor with the Weigert method, and, further, that only in one or two isolated instances did 
the fibres assume a whorl-arrangement. So different were the nodules that for a 
time it was assumed that a pathological process was in operation essentially distinct 
