The removal of a limb abolishes the function of the nervous structures concerned in the movements and other actions of the limb, and so these structures undergo atrophy from disuse. The posterior roots of the nerves are often slightly atrophied, but the white columns of the cord are not affected. The principal change is in the anterior cornua, where some of the ganglion cells completely disappear, and others are shorn of their processes and atrophied. This occurs at a part of the cord corresponding with the amputated limb, and on the same side of the body. If the amputation has been made comparatively late in life there is usually little change in the cord; the earlier the age of the person at the time of the amputation the more likely are these changes to occur.

In a case recorded by Edinger, in which intra-uterine amputation of the forearm had occurred, and the person lived to the age of 52, there was considerable atrophy of the nerved and of the corresponding half of the cord, especially of the grey matter. There was also some atrophy in the motor region of the convolutions in the brain.

Literature

Besides general works already noted, Charcot, Lectures on localization of cerebral and spinal diseases, Syd. Soc. transl., 1883; Tukck, Sitzungsber. d. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien, vols, vi., 1851, and xi., 1853; Leyden, Deutsch. Klinik, 1863; Gowers, Diagnosis of dis. of spinal cord, 2nd ed., 1881, and dis. of nervous system, 3rd ed., vol. i., 1899; Schiefferdecker, Virch. Arch., lxvii., 1876; Dreschfelr (Cord after amputation), Jour, of Anat. and Phys., 1879, xiv., 424; Genzmer, Virch. Arch., 1876, lxvi., 265; Edinger, Virch. Arch., 1882, lxxxix., 46, and Vorlesungen ub. den Bau der nerv. Centralorg.