THE ARTERIAL BLOOD SUPPLY OF THE HUMAN SPINAL CORD.

Abstract

The arrangement of the arteries in 22 spinal cords is described with special reference to the site, distribution and size of the vessels supplying the anterior and posterior spinal arteries, and the branches and communications of the latter arteries. The range of variation is considerable, making it impossible to predict the pattern in any individual, though the majority of feeding vessels to the anterior spinal artery entering in the thoracic region do so on the left, and one of these, the great spinal artery, supplying a large part of the lumbo-sacral enlargement, most frequently enters on a left thoracic ventral root between the 8th and nth. The posterior spinal arteries receive a greater number of smaller feeding vessels and may supply blood to the anterior spinal artery through large communications in the region of the conus medullaris. One of them commonly receives a large tributary on the dorsal root of the spinal nerve whose ventral root carries the great spinal artery, but there is no left-sided preponderance of feeding vessels equivalent to that in the anterior spinal artery. Large communications between the posterior spinal arteries are present in both enlargements, particularly the lumbo-sacral.