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Spinal cord   /spˈaɪnəl kɔrd/   Listen
Spinal cord

noun
1.
A major part of the central nervous system which conducts sensory and motor nerve impulses to and from the brain; a long tubelike structure extending from the base of the brain through the vertebral canal to the upper lumbar region.  Synonym: medulla spinalis.






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"Spinal cord" Quotes from Famous Books



... present purpose. The nervous system consists of two parts, (1) the central part, or cerebro-spinal centre, and (2) an outer part—the spinal nerves. The central part, or cerebro-spinal centre, includes the spinal cord, passing upward through the vertebrae of the spinal column and the brain. The brain consists of three parts: The cerebrum, or great brain, consisting of two hemispheres, which, though connected, are divided in great part by a longitudinal fissure; the ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain bars, Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting stars; And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... nervous system may be divided into central and peripheral portions. The central portion comprises the brain or encephalon and the spinal cord. These organs are lodged in the cranial cavity and spinal canal. The nerves and ganglia comprise the peripheral portion. The nerves form white cords that are made up of nerve fibres. The ganglia are grayish enlargements formed by nerve cells and supporting ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... then took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the skin and tissues until it entered the small opening between the lower and upper vertebrae, not stopping until it reached the open space just this side of the spinal cord. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... could not be pronounced till the operation which was about to take place should reveal the extent of injury to the spine. Bessy, in falling, must have struck on the back of her head and shoulders, and it was but too probable that the fractured vertebra had caused a bruise if not a lesion of the spinal cord. In that case paralysis was certain—and a slow crawling death the almost inevitable outcome. There had been cases, of course—Justine's professional memory evoked them—cases of so-called "recovery," where actual death was kept ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... the head instead of in the front, which is here modified to form a sucker. But the gills, by which this little creature breathes, expel the water by which they are bathed through a single hole at the side of the head, as in the frog tadpole; while in the possession of a brain, a spinal cord, and a soft backbone, both ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... the nature of a hormone is generally agreed, and may be regarded as having been proved in 1874 when Goltz and Ewald [Footnote: Pfluegers Archiv, ix., 1874.] removed the whole of the lumbo-sacral portion of the spinal cord of a bitch and found that the mammae in the animal developed and enlarged in the usual way during pregnancy and secreted milk normally after parturition. Ribbert [Footnote: Fortschritte der Medicin, Bd. 7.] in 1898 transplanted a milk gland of a guinea-pig to the neighbourhood of the ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... curious enough to be worth remembering. Contrast the sense of taste, as a source of suggestive impressions, with that of smell. Now the Professor assures me that you will find the nerve of taste has no immediate connection with the brain proper, but only with the prolongation of the spinal cord. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... rapidly, but dexterously and firmly, touched Peter just at the back of the neck. There was no wound larger than the head of a small pin, and yet the head fell instantly as though the heart had been pierced. The doctor had divided the spinal cord, and Peter Starke ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... activity consciousness is manifested are the upper and outer parts of the brain,—the cerebrum and cerebellum. These organs never receive impressions directly from the outside world, but only from lower nerve-centres, such as the spinal cord, the medulla, the optic lobes, and other special centres of sensation. The impressions received by the cerebrum and cerebellum are waves of molecular disturbance sent up along centripetal nerves from the lower centres, and presently drafted off along centrifugal nerves back to the lower centres, ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske

... growing as it were out of the walls of the stomach, there are, in our wonderful human machine, great bunches of nerves, called, by the medicals, the 'great ganglionic system,' and he will observe that these nerves are in intimate and inseparable connection with the spinal cord, and the brain. Then, if he recollects that a perpetual series of conversations and signals goes on by those agents between the stomach and the brain—that, in fact, the two are talking together every moment (without even the delay of that inappreciable interval for which the electric current lingers ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... left in wound. Windpipe, food-pipe, carotid, jugular, half a dozen smaller, but still formidable, vessels, a great braid of nerves, each as big as a lamp-wick, spinal cord,—ought to kill at once, if at all. Thought not mortal, or not thought mortal,—which was it? The first; that is better than the second would be.—"Keedysville, a post-office, Washington Co., Maryland." Leduc? Leduc? Don't remember that name.—The boy is waiting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... with Dalton's law, to the extent of roughly 1% for each atmosphere of pressure, and also that when the pressure is suddenly relieved the gas is liberated in bubbles within the body. It is these bubbles that do the mischief. Set free in the spinal cord, for instance, they may give rise to partial paralysis, in the labyrinth of the ear to auditory vertigo, or in the heart to stoppage of the circulation; on the other hand, they may be liberated in positions where they do no harm. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... raised his head once more. The bear gave him a whack that snapped his spinal cord, then rose and swung himself round the enclosure with the arrogant mien of a bloated sultan who has swept off a troublesome head. This ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... this stiffening rod of cartilage. The next advantage—we have seen it in many cases—was to combine flexibility with support. The rod was divided into connected sections (vertebrae), and hardened into bone. Besides stiffening the body, it provided a valuable shelter for the spinal cord, and its upper part expanded into a box to enclose the brain. The fins were formed of folds of skin which were thrown off at the sides and on the back, as the animal wriggled through the water. They were of use in swimming, and sections of them were stiffened with rods of cartilage, and became ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... affection, may involve central structures as, for example, the spinal cord, medulla oblongata or parts of the brain. In making an examination of some lame animals it is necessary to distinguish between cases of lameness that are of central origin and marked by incooerdination of movement, ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... bony arch above that backbone and a bony arch below it, forming two cavities,—no matter whether these arches be of hard bone, or of cartilage, or even of a softer substance; every Vertebrate has the brain, the spinal marrow or spinal cord, and the organs of the senses in the upper cavity, and the organs of digestion, respiration, circulation, and reproduction in the lower one; every Vertebrate has four locomotive appendages built of the same bones and bearing the same relation to the rest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... The spinal cord is replaced with a brass or galvanized wire of suitable size and length; this should project enough to penetrate a piece of cork fitted to the cavity of the skull. If the leg bones were removed ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham

... animal economy, is subject to the same principles of polarization as the magnetic current from the artificial machine, or the magnetism of the bar-magnet. In the material organism of man, the great nerve-centers—the brain, the spinal cord, and the ganglions—appear to act the part of fixed magnets, charged with the electro-vital fluid. Indeed, there is much reason to believe that this fluid is elaborated within these nerve-centers—more especially within the brain—from the inorganic electricity ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark

... was known as the vertebral theory. The great bulk of the nervous system of vertebrate animals consists of a mass of tissue lying along the dorsal line of the body and enclosed in a cartilaginous or bony sheath. The nerve tissue is the brain and spinal cord; the sheath is the skull in front and the vertebral column along the greater part of the length of the animal. The brain may be taken simply as an anterior portion of the nerve mass, corresponding in a general ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... Corsan missed severing his spinal cord by a quarter inch and had two skull fractures. To almost any other person, they said, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... work carried on by the thousands of parts of the body is known as the brain and spinal cord with their tiny threads, the nerves, spreading everywhere through bones and muscles. The brain and spinal cord give the orders and the nerves carry ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison

... can reach 50% in epidemic outbreaks. respiratory disease acquired through close contact with an infectious person: Meningococcal meningitis - bacterial disease causing an inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord; one of the most important bacterial pathogens is Neisseria meningitidis because of its potential to cause epidemics; symptoms include stiff neck, high fever, headaches, and vomiting; bacteria are transmitted from person to person by respiratory droplets and facilitated by close and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... presumed to extend merely to the parts actually exposed to view. It cannot, however, be too forcibly impressed that the condition is universal in the body. If the lungs could be seen, they, too, would be found with their vessels injected; if the brain and spinal cord could be laid open to view, they would be discovered in the same condition; if the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys or any other vascular organs or parts could be exposed, the vascular engorgement would be equally manifest. In the lower animals, I have been able to witness ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur



Words linked to "Spinal cord" :   spinal vein, spinal fluid, cerebrospinal fluid, neural structure, Golgi cell, vena spinalis, Golgi's cell, central nervous system, medulla spinalis, CNS, systema nervosum centrale, funiculus



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