"SPINAL DYSRAPHISM"

Abstract

Since 1641, when Tulpuis¹described a curious malformation of the spinal cord and the meninges to which he gave the name spina bifida, the medical literature has been replete with clinical, embryologic and pathologic reports of this condition. Despite the outstanding studies of von Recklinghausen²and the extensive works of Denucé,³Hesse,⁴Sternberg,⁵Leveuf⁶and others, studies of conditions related to, or part of, spina bifida in the larger sense continue to appear in the medical literature, with the lesion masquerading under a variety of terms. Since spina bifida is primarily an expression of inadequate or improper fusion of the embryonal tissues in the dorsal median region of the developing embryo, the resultant pathologic states will be manifested in the cutaneous, mesodermal or neural derivatives of these tissues. This defective fusion of tissues has been adequately designated by the term dysraphism, or status dysraphicus