INFLUENCE OF THE COLUMNS OF THE SPINAL CORD. 19i 
We are sorry for it. If he will kindly favour us with another 
paper, we shall be enabled to do him justice. It is a simple 
case, and not of unfrequent occurrence; but it cannot be too often 
forced on the observation of the proprietor of horses.—Y.] 
THE INFLUENCE OF THE ANTERIOR AND POSTE¬ 
RIOR COLUMNS OF THE SPINAL CORD. 
Mr. Percivall has kindly directed our attention to a discus¬ 
sion which lately took place in the Royal Medical and Chirurgical 
Society. A report of it is given in the Lancet, of the 21st of 
February, and is entitled Case of Disease of the posterior Columns 
of the Spinal Cord, by Edward Stanley, Surgeon to St. Bartholo¬ 
mew’s Hospital.” The appearances after death are perfectly con* 
trary to the notions which were first promulgated by Sir Charles 
Bell, and which have been generally adopted by physiologists. We 
will merely copy from this valuable journal, and leave it, at pre¬ 
sent, to younger and more ardent inquirers to reconcile the appa¬ 
rent contradiction. 
“ IMr. Stanley considered the case he was about to relate as 
worthy of being recorded as a well-marked example of disease 
strictly limited to the posterior columns of the cord, yet producing 
phenomena at variance with the doctrine of the distinct influences 
of the anterior and posterior columns of the cord on the faculties of 
motion and sensation. 
“ The disease, which was not the result of injury, commenced 
about three years before the admission of the patient into St. Bar¬ 
tholomew’s Hospital, with impaired motion of the lower extremi¬ 
ties, at first slight, but progressively increasing, so that at the time 
of his admission he could only succeed, by a great effort, in raising 
his legs from the ground while sitting in a chair. Before the pa¬ 
tient’s death the inability of motion became complete in each lower 
limb, in its whole extent. In no part, however, was there any 
defect ol sensation confessed by the patient, whether the skin was 
.scratched, pricked, or pinched. On dissection after death, no signs 
of disease presented themselves, except in the spinal cord. Here, 
contrary to the anticipations of many persons who saw the case 
(and much intere.st was excited with reference to it), no disease 
wliatever was found in the anterior columns of the cord. An ex¬ 
tensive change of structure and colour was, on the contrary, mani¬ 
fest in the posterior columns, from the pons to the lower end of the 
cord. ‘The value ol the case,’ says the author, ‘consists in the 
distinctness ot its phenomena being acknowledged by many coin- 
pelent observers to have been such as they are liere recorded.’ 
