Home Table of contents About the author Acknowledgements Contact 

Plate III.
Click image to enlarge

 

Cruveilhier's Original 1841 Title: "A new example of [spinal cord] degeneration or grey transformation".

Specific Lesion Traits: Apart from the scars having encroached, mainly at the cervical enlargement, upon the spinal cord's flanks, comparable changes extend along the cord's posterior midline (fig. 1'). A few smaller scars additionally mark the spinal cord's front (fig. 1). In the spinal cord cross-section (fig. 1"), the typical wedge shape of lateral and posterior spinal patches is shown.

The pons again shows multiheaded lesions of "the same grey degeneration".

Significance: Curveilhier here for the first time described a prominent affection of both the spinal cord's flanks and hindmost sector - but he noticed neither these findings' specificity, nor their conformity to either the lesions of his first case of "grey degeneration of the spinal cord", or to those of Carswell's "peculiar diseased state". The figure is unique in displaying a specifically affected spinal cord in its entirety.


© Dr. F. Alfons Schelling, M.D.