t which has undergone the diseased
change.

The difficulty in supporting the trunk erect, as well as the
propensity to the adopting of a hurried pace, is also referable to
such a diminution of the nervous power in the extensor muscles of the
head and trunk, as prevents them from performing the offices of
maintaining the head and body in an erect position.

From the impediment to speech, the difficulty in mastication and
swallowing, the inability to retain, or freely to eject, the Saliva,
may with propriety be inferred an extension of the morbid change
upwards through the medulla spinalis to the medulla oblongata,
necessarily impairing the powers of the several nerves derived from
that portion into which the morbid change may have reached. In the
late occurrence of this set of symptoms, and the extension upwards of
the diseased state, a very close agreement is observable between this
disease and that which has been already shown, proved fatal to the
Count de Lordat. But in this case, the disease doubtlessly became
differently modified, and its symptoms considerably accelerated, in
consequence of the magnitude of the injury by which the disease was
induced.

CHAP. V.

CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE MEANS OF CURE.

The inquiries made in the preceding pages yield, it is to be much
regretted, but little more than evidence of inference: nothing direct
and satisfactory has been obtained. All that has been ventured to
assume here, has been that the disease depends on a disordered state
of that part of the medulla which is contained in the cervical
vertebrae. But of what nature that morbid change is; and whether
originating in the medulla itself, in its membranes, or in the
containing theca, is, at present, the subject of doubt and conjecture.
But although, at present, uninformed as to the precise nature of the
disease, still it ought not to be considered as one against which
there exists no countervailing remedy.

On the contrary, there appears to be sufficient reason for hoping that
some remedial process may ere long be discovered, by which, at least,
the progress of the disease may be stopped. It seldom happens that
the agitation extends beyond the arms within the first two years;
which period, therefore, if we were disposed to divide the disease
into stages, might be said to comprise the first stage. In this
period, it is very probable, that remedial means might be e