Carcinoma is always a distressing disorder. It may be latent for some time. When it develops in the stomach or prostate gland, it soon produces grave symptoms, and the distress is greatly intensified to the patient and relatives by a sudden addition of paralysis of the lower limbs when no suspicion of implication of the vertebral column or spinal cord had been entertained.
As I have not been able to read the voluminous literature, I do not know whether or not this rapidly forming paraplegia has been described in cases of carcinoma of parts of the body remote from the central nervous system, but I have observed two cases in the past few years in which this unexpected paraplegia developed without recognized warning. I did not see either patient before the paraplegia developed, but both came under my care immediately afterward.
A rapidly developing paralysis of the lower limbs or