An attempt to remove the difficulties attending the applications of Dr. Carpenter's theory of the function of the sensori-motor ganglia to the common form of hemiplegia / by W. H. Broadbent, M.D.

  • Broadbent, W. H. (William Henry), Sir, 1835-1907.
Date:
[1866], [©1866]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to remove the difficulties attending the applications of Dr. Carpenter's theory of the function of the sensori-motor ganglia to the common form of hemiplegia / by W. H. Broadbent, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    12/22 (page 8)
    influenced by a guiding sensation, and are as strictly voluntary as any movements in the body. If then, the corpus striatum is to be regarded as the centre of all volitional motor impulses, these exemptions, partial and com- plete alike, require explanation. So far as I know, this has only been attempted in the case of the facial and thoracico-abdominal muscles, and the explanation has usually turned on the confusion of automatic with voluntary movements. With respect to the thoracico-abdominal muscles, the explana- tion usually given is somewhat as follows: That their habitual and constant action being in the reflex respiratory movements, they are to some extent withdrawn from the influence of the will, and are consequently not affected when voluntary motor power is lost. This which has a very plausible sound will be seen on examination to be absurd. It is in effect, equivalent to saying, that because these muscles are comparatively seldom called into action by the will, it is reasonable to expect that they will still be reached by volitional impulses when other muscles more constantly acted upon by the will are completely cut off from its influence. The persistence of the reflex respiratory movements is easily under- stood—the mechanism on which they depend is not damaged, but this does not explain the voluntary action still found possible in the muscles of the affected side. Yan der Kolk employs a similar process of reasoning in attempt- ing to explain the exemption of these muscles, by reference to the relation of the lateral columns of the cord with the nucleus of the vagus. These columns have been shown by the experiments of Schiff, to serve for the motions of the trunk, and therefore for the respiratory movements. Van der Kolk finds that their fibres terminate for the most part in the nucleus of the vagus, this con- nection being part of the respiratory apparatus. He concludes, further, that in consequence of this relation, the function of the lateral columns does not depend directly on the will, though to a certain extent influenced by it, but that they are brought into action specially by a stimulus from the vagus. That is, because these columns form part of an automatic apparatus of which the nucleus of the vagus is the centre, when they are called into action by a totally distinct power, volitional, this also has its seat in this nucleus. His own researches have shown this idea to be untenable. Fibres are found to pass upwards from the vagus, through which the will is supposed to influence the respiratory