In December, 1899, I presented a paper to the Philadelphia Neurological Society in which I called attention to a new clinical type which I designated as unilateral progressive ascending paralysis.1 Somewhat similar cases have since been described under such terms as progressively developing hemiplegia, chronic progressive hemiplegia, and ascending unilateral paralysis. Unilateral ascending paralysis is probably the simplest and, therefore, the best designation for the symptom-complex.
Since the publication of the first contributions on this type of paralysis, the subject has attracted some attention, but not perhaps as much as its importance warrants. Probably not a few cases of progressively ascending hemiplegia or hemiparesis have failed of record because of the slowness of development of the affection and the overlooking of the essential feature of upward progression. Some cases have, no doubt, been passed by as lacking in interest, or as probable instances of focal disease not worthy of