‖ hemiplegia Path.
(hɛmɪˈpliːdʒɪə)
[Late L., a. Gr. ἡµιπληγία (rare, for ἡµιπληξία), f. ἡµι- hemi- + πληγή stroke, f. stem of πλήσσειν to strike.]
Paralysis of one side of the body; usually caused by a lesion in the opposite side of the brain.
| 1600 Holland Pliny xli. xvi. 1105 The Consull..fell downe in a fit of Apoplexie: which turned into an Hemiplegia or dead palsey all the one side of his bodie. 1754 Chesterfield in World No. 92 ¶5 Though they have not yet lost one half of themselves by a hemiplegia. a 1754 Mead Wks. 481 (Jod.) On dissection of the bodies of apoplecticks who had been seized with an hemiplegia, he always found the cause of the disease in the opposite side of the brain. 1876 tr. Wagner's Gen. Pathol. 291 In old Hemiplegias the epidermis is often dry, rough, and scaly. |
Hence hemiˈplegiac a., affected with or subject to hemiplegia; n., one so affected. hemiˈplegian a. = prec.
| 1782 W. Heberden Comm. lxix. (1806) 352 In one hemiplegiac the motion of the parts began to return. 1835–6 Todd Cycl. Anat. I. 805/1 In hemiplegiac subjects. 1842 Syd. Smith Lett. Locking in Railw. Wks. 1859 II. 324/1 Most absurd..is this hemiplegian law—an act..to protect one side of the body and not the other. |