Experimental Studies on the March of Spasm During Epileptic Convulsion

March of spasm in epileptic convulsions was first observed by Tackson in 1863, when he said that in certain epileptic convulsions there is a phenomenon, where the convulsion starts from a certain muscle group and gradually spreads to other muscle groups. He called this, "march of spasm" and reported that it spreads according to the arrangement of motor representations in Rolando's area of the cerebral cortex. Since then, many important studies concerning the cerebral motor cortex were performed and reported. Recently, when Erickson had brought out a method in measuring electroencephalographic waves, Jackson's theory has been acknowledged. In Japan, Hayashi and his school has made an extensive study on epileptic convulsion. They used nicotine, cardiazol and others as chemical stimulations and decided the conduction tract of epileptic convulsion in dogs. The characteristic part of chemical stimulation is that, the nelve cells excite themselves when it is injected directly among them in certain concentrations and do not excite themselves when performed among nerve fibers. This was proved by Ishizuka. We used this method in dogs to see what was the mechanism of this phenomenon, "march" which is seen in epileptic convulsions and what tracts they took for conduction. And as its result, we found new facts that the presence of the motor cortex was needed for the march of spasm, and the conduction tract descending from the lenticular nucleus were quite different from Hayashi and his school had previously reported.