TEST FOR QUANTITATIVE VIBRATORY SENSATION IN DIABETES, PERNICIOUS ANEMIA AND TABES DORSALIS

THERE are a number of systemic diseases, largely dealt with by workers in internal medicine, in which neurologic complications play a highly important role and in which a correct evaluation of signs and symptoms is of utmost importance in diagnosis and prognosis. The neurologic changes which are considered here are those involving the peripheral nerves, the posterior nerve roots and the spinal cord as they appear in patients with diabetes mellitus, pernicious anemia and tabes dorsalis. Of the many and varied neurologic signs and symptoms presented by such patients, the major interest in this discussion is loss of vibratory sensation. Diminution or loss of vibratory sensation also occurs in diseases other than diabetes. Various observers have noted this in patients having lesions in the cord and in cases of multiple peripheral neuritis, especially those involving lead poisoning and poisoning due to alcohol. It has also been noted in transverse myelitis,