Anatomy of the brain and spinal cord / by J. Ryland Whitaker.

  • Whitaker, J. Ryland (Joseph Ryland)
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anatomy of the brain and spinal cord / by J. Ryland Whitaker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    1. THE WHITE MATTER. Taking up such a section of the spinal cord, and examining it with the naked eye, you will see, as we have just said, that the white matter forms the outer or cortical part of the cord, and surrounds the grey centre. This white matter, arranged in a series of columns, gradually increases in amount from below upwards, being specially augmented in the cervical and lumbar enlargements. Compared with the grey matter, it is more abundant in the neck and back, but less so in the loins (Plate III., page 14). 1. White Columns of the Cord, and their Sub-divisions.—Your attention, you will remember, has already been called to the fact that the exit and entrance of the nerve roots sub-divide each lateral half of the cord into three longitudinal white seg- ments or columns—namely, an anterior, a LATERAL, and a posterior; each of which, however, can be again sub-divided into smaller tracts or strands of fibres wThich have received special names and have special functions (Fig. 13, Plate IV., page 22). Tracts or Strands.—To determine by actual dissection these various tracts or strands would be impossible; the task has, however, been accomplished by the study of development and by the aid of ex- perimental physiology and pathology; for we may learn as much of the course of nerve fibres by studying them in their birth as in their death —in their development as in their decay. The development teaches us that different tracts or