The Collaborative International Dictionary
Locomotor \Lo`co*mo"tor\, a. [See Locomotion.] Of or pertaining to movement or locomotion.
Locomotor ataxia, or Progressive locomotor ataxy (Med.), a disease of the spinal cord characterized by peculiar disturbances of gait, and difficulty in co["o]rdinating voluntary movements.
Ataxia \A*tax"i*a\, Ataxy \At"ax*y\, n. [NL. ataxia, Gr. ?, fr. ? out of order; 'a priv. + ? ordered, arranged, ? to put in order: cf. F. ataxie.]
Disorder; irregularity. [Obs.]
--Bp. Hall.-
(Med.)
Irregularity in disease, or in the functions.
The state of disorder that characterizes nervous fevers and the nervous condition. [archaic]
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(Med.) Loss of coordination in the voluntary muscles, especially the limbs; an inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements; it results in unsteady movements and a staggering gait. See also locomotor ataxia, an ataxia which occurs when attempting to perform coordinated muscular movements.
Syn: ataxy
Locomotor ataxia. See Locomotor.
WordNet
n. syphilis of the spinal cord characterized by degeneration of sensory neurons and stabbing pains in the trunk and legs and unsteady gait and incontinence and impotence [syn: tabes dorsalis]
Wikipedia
Locomotor ataxia is the inability to precisely control one's own bodily movements. Persons afflicted with this disease may walk in a jerky, non-fluid manner. They will not know where their arms and legs are without looking, but can, for instance, feel and locate a hot object placed against their feet. It is often a symptom of tabes dorsalis, which is a key finding in tertiary syphilis.
It is caused by degeneration of the posterior (dorsal) white column of the spinal cord.
The chilling effects of this condition and its connection to venereal disease are dramatized in the story "Love O' Women" by Rudyard Kipling.
Category:Neurodegenerative disorders
Usage examples of "locomotor ataxia".
The row of oleander bushes in the back yard of the yellow house went raving mad, flowering so riotously that they might well have developed locomotor ataxia.
Walker was lecturing on locomotor ataxia to a wardful of youngsters.
Jonas declares he once spoke of locomotor ataxia in hearing and she said she knew too well what that was.
The mark of the devil on a woman's breast is only a mole, the man who came back from the dead and stood at his wife's door dressed in the cerements of the grave was only suffering from locomotor ataxia, the bogeyman who gibbers and capers in the corner of a child's bedroom is only a heap of blankets.