Abstract. Mter having experimented with electro-stimulation on monkeys, the authors have put it into practice with the paraplegic. They report observations on pregnancy of a woman with a complete paraplegic below T4 who was injured IS years ago. Nineteen electro-stimulations and seven artificial inseminations were necessary. The electro stimulation is easy and can be repeated at will.

Abstract. Apart from pains by removal of inhibition, there are pains by hyperstimulation as well, even with apparently complete paraplegia.Successively, the author first reviews specific sub-lesional pains, then lesional pains (some of them are probably due to deafferentation), and at last, supra-lesional pains which are the most numerous ones and for which examples of hyper stimulation are given. The therapeutic rules used by the author are enumerated. To ease their suffering about 8 per cent of the patients are given antidepressive drugs, which most of the time can be gradually stopped after several months.

The Tetra®gap Survey, a multicentre epidemiological survey on the outcome of tetraplegic spinal cord injured (TSCI) people from their ®rst admission to a Rehabilitation Department or Centre is currently being undertaken in France.The general objective of this survey is to evaluate the situation of the TSCI people and their conditions of life in its medical, psychological and social aspects.This ®rst article is aimed at presenting the protocol and the methodology of this survey. In a second part, yet to be submitted for publication, the preliminary results will be presented. It was ®rst necessary to create a database of the population of TSCI people known to the centres and medical rehabilitation services, removing double entries.The criteria used for inclusion in the study were: a complete or incomplete traumatic cervical cord lesion, including post-surgical complications; age 16 or over at the time of the accident which must have occurred before December 31, 1992.The enquiry consisted of a self-administered questionnaire carried out with surviving tetraplegic people who had given their informed consent for their participation. The questionnaire consecutively covered the following topics: the situation at the time of the accident, the medical evolution between the accident and the end of stay in a rehabilitation unit, their evolution after discharge and the current situation (medical, social, professional and personal).During this ®rst phase, 6082 TSCI people were identi®ed by the collaborating centres. The 603 ®les of those who had died and 769 double entries were removed. Thus, 4710 questionnaires were sent out. The results of the participation show that 2251 people gave their consent and received questionnaires (340 additional deaths were acknowledged at this step), 163 refused, 869 were lost for follow-up, and 67 were excluded. There was no reply from 1020 people. We received 1830 questionnaires of which 1669 ful®lled all the necessary criteria for data exploitation. Home interviews with people who gave their consent will be carried out in a second phase as well as a study of deaths. A 5-year longitudinal follow-up is scheduled.

DURING World War II the systematic study of the circulatory problems in para plegia was began by Sir Ludwig Guttmann and continued after the war by him and his colleagues at Stoke Mandeville. The loss of thermoregulatory vasomotor adaptation (Cooper et al., 1957; Guttmann et al., 1958) and the cardiovascular responses to bladder distension (Guttmann & Whitteridge, 1947; Cunningham et al., 1953), were the main results of the first studies. In the following years, studies were made on the behaviour of denervated vessels (after peripheric nerves section or after sympathectomy) during responses to cold (Shepherd

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