37 Loc. cit., p. 108.
Crossed paralysis is extremely rare. There are 3 cases in the Duchenne-Seeligmüller table; Leyden38 has one. But paraplegia of the lower extremities, coinciding with paralysis of one upper extremity, is by no means so rare, especially as a residual paralysis.
38 Archiv Psychiatrie, Bd. vi.
Finally, as in cerebral paralysis, the muscles of the trunk, though often paralyzed at the outset, rarely remain so in children—much more often in adults. Eulenburg39 relates one interesting case of complete paralysis and atrophy of the extensors of the back. Even the interspinous muscles were involved, as shown by the divergence of the spinous processes. The paralysis was observed in a girl of fifteen affected since the age of three, and was completely cured in five months by daily faradizations of ten minutes each, and two gymnastic séances, each lasting two hours.
39 Arch. Virch., Bd. xvii., 1859.
Birdsall40 has described one case of unilateral paralysis of the abdominal muscles.
40 Journal of Nervous Diseases.
Study of the precise combinations of the muscles paralyzed has recently acquired peculiar interest in connection with the localization in the spinal cord of the motor or trophic nuclei of their nerves.41 Several facts have been ascertained: 1st, that, in notable contrast with progressive muscular atrophy, atrophic paralysis tends to involve definite groups of muscles; 2d, that this grouping is not effected in accordance with the proximity to each other of the muscles on the limb, but with their functional association. Remak affirms that Charles Bell had already called attention to the fact that in cases of local muscular paralysis of the extremities the paralysis does not spread by muscular continuity, but in accordance with the functional association of muscles. Thus, paralysis of the thumb is more often associated with that of the forearm than with paralysis of the other muscles of the hand. 3d. From such grouping may often be inferred a different localization of certain nerve-nuclei than would be supposed from the position of the muscles alone. 4th. That the fibres contained in a single nerve-trunk, but distributed to different muscles, probably separate from each other within the cord, to be there distributed to variously-situated nuclei.42
41 Ernst Remak, “Localis. der Atroph. lahmung,” Archiv f. Psych., ix., 1879; Ferrier, Brain, vol. iv. No. 3; also, Proceedings Royal Society, No. 212, p. 12.