Sympathectomy in the Goat.

Abstract

Interest in the relation between the sympathetic nervous system and the striated limb musculature was revived by the experiments of Hunter and Royle. 1 They described a loss of plastic tonus in the hind limb of the goat and in the wing of the fowl following the severence of the sympathetic connections to these parts. By the loss of plastic tonus they meant the loss of an intrinsic muscular supporting mechanism controlled by the sympathetic nervous system which functioned to maintain the position of the limb after the ordinary somatically innervated fibers had ceased contracting. Later experiments by other workers who used the dog and cat chiefly, failed to confirm these observations. We are reporting the results of unilateral right or left lumbar sympathectomy performed on 7 young normal goats.

Our general procedure was (1) examination of the normal animal, (2) left or right lumbar sympathectomy, (3) comparison of normal and operated sides following sympathectomy, (4) decerebration, (5) comparison of normal and sympathectomized limb during decerebrate rigidity.

The chief purpose of the normal examination was to elicit any evidences of right or left leggedness. We observed the movements of walking, running, and jumping and also examined the postural reflexes as they have been described by Magnus. 2 This is done by placing the animal on its back in a cradle and noting the changes in the position and tone of the limbs after rotation of the head on the neck. The results of the normal examination indicated (1) right-leggedness in one animal which persisted throughout the subsequent procedures, (2) the postural reflexes in the normal goat are identical to those in the animals Magnus has worked with.

We found the lateral retro peritoneal approach to the lumbar chain to be the most satisfactory. Autopsy indicated that we succeeded in removing the 2nd to the 5th, inclusive, lumbar ganglia in the majority of instances. The wounds healed readily; the recovery from this procedure was uneventful.