On the study of muscular atrophy as an aid to the physiological investigation of the spinal cord / by William Allen Sturge.

  • Sturge, William Allen, 1850-1919.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the study of muscular atrophy as an aid to the physiological investigation of the spinal cord / by William Allen Sturge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    k ON THE STUDY OF c. 1ULAE ATEOPHY AS AN AID TO THE PHYSIOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE SPINAL COED. By William Allen Stttrge, M.D. ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL. Notwithstanding the attention which has been paid of late years to the subject of muscular atrophy, and the great advances that have been made in our clinical and pathological knowledge of the various diseases of which id is the most important symptom, there yet remains much to he learned about it, not only as regards the exact nature of the lesions giving rise to some of its forms, but also in respect to some of the functional modifications to which the lesions give rise By a careful study of these functional modifications, we may, I believe, help to clear up certain problems connected with the anatomy and physiology of the spinal cord. In order to prepare the way for what I shall have to say, I will give a brief account of the condition leading to muscular atrophy. You are doubtless all aware that the nutrition of the muscles is intimately dependent upon the anterior horns of grey matter in the spinal cord, and more particularly that it is to certain large multi- polar cells lying in, and forming part of the grey matter of these horns that this special function has been attributed. I am not now going to stay to consider what is the nature of the connection between the large multipolar cells and muscular nutrition ; for my present purpose the nature of this connection is immaterial. The point of importance is that all voluntary muscles are connected with the anterior horns of grey matter in the spinal cord, or, in the case of muscles supplied by the cranial nerves with nuclei of grey matter in the medulla oblongata or pons Varolii. So long as the connection between the muscles and the anterior horns or medullary and pons nuclei is uninterrupted; and so long as the