PARAPLEGIA―Depending on Disease of the Ligaments of the Spine

　The causes of Paraplegia are frequently so obscure during life, and, after a careful examination of the dead, so often elude our search, that any additional facts tending to throw light on this affection deserve to be placed on record. The diagnosis also of these cases, it is well known to all who have seen much of this form of paralysis, is difficult and dubious；and the treatment recommended is oftener founded on empirical, than on rational or scientific principles. The record of the following cases may serve to call forth further examination of these spinal affections；and, by eliciting additional facts, will assist in distinguishing between the several diseases of the spinal cord and brain that give rise to paraplegia.

　Mr. Earle's and Mr. Stanley's Papers, in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions―two very able expositions of the causes of paraplegia―do not include among them the peculiar spinal disorder that forms the subject of the following remarks. It was in the attempt to verify the correctness of the pathology of the latter surgeon, that I first observed the change in the ligaments of the spinal canal,which the following cases will explain.