304 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
raise him were fruitless; he therefore was placed on a kind of 
carriage, and brought to Alfort. Feeling was altogether de- 
stroyed in the middle and posterior regions of the body; pricks 
with a pin, and even with a bistoury, caused no pain. The 
hinder limbs, however, could execute some very extensive mo- 
tions. On the second day, sensibility, to a certain degree, 
returned to the hind limbs; but on the third day, all feeling, and 
the power of motion as it regarded the hind legs, were gone, 
and he died; Examination after death presented the following 
lesions: — “There was much gangrenous inflammation of the 
muscles, ligaments, and periosteum of the dorsal portion of the 
vertebral column, and appearing again towards the fourth lum- 
bar vertebra. The cellular adipose tissue, by means of which 
the dura mater adhered to the walls of the bony canal, was 
infiltrated with a reddish serous fluid. The substance of the 
spinal marrow, from the third cervical vertebra to the tenth 
dorsal, was completely softened. From this point to the third 
lumbar vertebra, the natural consistence of the cord was nearly 
preserved ; but there the softening appeared again, but in a 
manner less complete, for it included only the superior fibres 
(the sensitive columns) of that portion of the spinal marrow.” 
Our limited Knowledge of the Subject. — It may be taken as a 
general rule in the examination of the spinal cord, that, where 
there is complete ramollissement of any portion of the cord, no 
voluntary motion can take place below it, nor the impressions of 
surrounding objects made on parts below the incision be con- 
veyed to the sensorium : but here is a space from the third cervical 
to the tenth dorsal of softening of the cord, and yet the hind 
limbs were moveable ; and there was a second space in which also 
the sensitive columns were wanting, and yet sensibility was re- 
turning. I can only say that I cannot altogether account for this. 
If I dared to allude to the human being, I occasionally find a 
considerable portion of the cord softened, gone, and yet there 
is very little lesion either of sensibility or motion. I will not 
say with a certain writer, that ‘‘the general opinion of the 
brain being the exclusive seat of these functions falls to the 
ground but that we have much to learn of the causes by 
means of which the function is perfectly arrested in one case,, 
and discharged by some circuitous but not inefficient channel in 
the other. W e have yet much to learn on this and various 
other important points of physiology and pathology. 
.Lons of Feeling produced bp Pressure. Apoplexy. — Anaesthesia, 
or the diminution of feeling, may be produced by pressure on 
any portion of the sensitive columns, whether contained in the 
spinal canal or traced up to their centre or origin within the 
