myelomalacia

(medicine) Softening of the spinal cord.

Softening of the spinal cord.

Morbid softening (necrosis) of spinal cord. It is not commonly recorded as an entity separate from encephalomalacia. Poisonings by Phalaris tuberosa in sheep and sorghum in horses are two examples. There is a gradual onset of paresis or paralysis.

• progressive hemorrhagic m. — a progressive, ascending and descending, intramedullary hemorrhage of the spinal cord that sometimes follows trauma; the result of ischemic and hemorrhagic infarction of the parenchyma, but not nerve roots in the leptomeninges. Called also hematomyelia.