EXAMINATION OF SOME SPINAL NERVES 133 
previously drawn attention to this significant fact.* Similarly in tlie tore limb, flexion-adduction 
of thumb, though often instanced as an action of peculiarly cortical nature, is really the most 
frequent and facile pure spinal reflex of the upper extremity. Its large and predominant repre- 
sentation in the cortext is concomitant with, rather than in contrast against, a large and 
predominant representation in the spinal cord. So also in the wry-neck reflex obtainable from 
Vth cranial nerve, and especially from Ilnd and Ilird cervical roots, the movement, a turning of 
the chin and neck (with some lateral rotation of the head) away from the side of excitation, we 
have another example of a movement preponderantly represented in wide regions of the cortext 
(Ferrier, from frontal cortex ; Schafer, from occipital cortex), also preponderantly represented 
in an extensive set of bulbospinal reflex mechanisms. 
An almost invariable sequence to transection is eventually ulceration in the neighbourhood 
of the outer malleolus. The ulcers heal readily if dressed ; but they recur : I find no evidence 
for believing them due to tropic disturbance. They seem the result of pressure during the 
paralytic condition of the limb. CEdema of the foot also occurs. The muscles waste greatly, 
especially, I think, the quadriceps extensor of thigh. 
A fact of importance is that if regularly repeated passive extensions be not undertaken and 
kept up, '■late rigidity'' 'contracture' ultimately flexes the hips and knees. The onset of the 
rigidity is shown by resistance to movement in the direction toward which act the muscles antago- 
nistic to those becoming rigid : this can be in some cases felt in two or three weeks. The atrophy 
is severest in the extensors of the knee, at least that is my experience in the Cat, Dog, and Monkey. 
I cannot confirm FREUSBERot when he states there is to be found in the dog no alteration in the 
nutritive condition of any of the muscles. Myself, I find it affect both sets of muscles, flexor 
and extensor ; much as MunkJ describes after cortical ablations, when hemiplegic contracture 
occurs in the Monkey. That the rigidity ''contracture'' affects in the lower limb the flexors in the 
Monkey, rather than the extensors, as I am told is the case in Man, may be due to extension of 
the limb being more predominant in the erect position than in the quadrupedal. 
In some of the Monkeys with hind-limbs insensitized by spinal transection, the animals 
attacked the insentient limb ; they began to pull it literally to pieces with an air suggesting playful 
curiosity. In one case the great sciatic nerve at the hip was frayed out and through in the course 
of a forenoon. In our research on the effect of rendering the limb insentient (apaesthete) by 
section of its afferent nerve roots. Dr. Mor r and myself met with a similar experience in some 
individual animals.§ The ataxic and semi-paralytic condition of the limb evidently annoys the 
creature although not causing it pain. 
The amount of reflex movement elicitable, after spinal transection, varies much in different 
monkeys of the same species : also in one and ih; same individual from day to day. On some 
mornings mere vestiges of reflexes obtainable on the previous morning might be all that were 
possible. In most cases a few repetitions tires out the reflex reaction ; after increasing somewhat 
for a few repetitions at the beginning of the examination, they begin to fade out, and do so unless 
* 'Journ. of Physiol.,' vol. 13, p. 621, 1892. 
f Pfliiger's 'Archiv,' vol. 9, 1875. 
§ ' Proc. Roy. Soc.,' vol. 57, p. 481, 1S95. 
X H. Miink, ' Sitzungsber. lier Kbnigl. Akad. lier 
Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1894. 
