Functional recovery from spinal cord trauma following delayed incision of spinal meninges in dogs.

The spinal cords of 16 normal dogs were exposed via dorsal laminectomies and damaged with a known force. In eight dogs the spinal cord meninges were incised longitudinally after a delay of 2 h. The other eight dogs were kept as controls and their meninges were not incised. The spinal cord function of all dogs was monitored for up to 32 days. The results show that delayed incision of the spinal meninges is of little benefit to dogs following experimental trauma to the spinal cord.