Nervous exhaustion and the diseases induced by it : with observations on the origin and nature of nervous force.

  • Campbell, Hugh Joseph, 1898-
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nervous exhaustion and the diseases induced by it : with observations on the origin and nature of nervous force. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    nerves in directing, conducting, and controlling all the most important and essential acts of organic life, and at the same time keeping up an interchange of sympathies between the various and most dis- similar organs, cannot be too highly estimated. We have seen that its close relationship to the spinal nerves as they issue from the cord, and with some of the most important cerebral nerves, places it so thoroughly en rapport with all the great operations of mind and body, that it fully justifies the name sympathetic. We can thus understand how emo- tions of the mind affect the various viscera, and de- rangements of the viscera influence the brain and mental faculties. Into this subject we shall enter more fully when we come to discuss some of the forms in which nervous exhaustion manifests itself. Messrs. Vulpian and Philipeaux have proved by their experiments that all nerve fibres are mere con- ductors, able to transmit nervous force cither towards or from the nervous centres; and that the same nerve fibre may serve for sensation or motion when transplanted from one nerve trunk to another ;* and Dr. Brown-Sequard has demonstrated most fully and clearly that the nervous conductors serving to the following functions—the transmission of the various kinds of sensitive impressions, the reflex phenomena, the conveyance of nervous force to muscles or to blood-vessels, &c. are absolutely distinct one from the other as regards their func- tion ; for the function of nerve fibre depends, * Vide Journal de Physiologie de l'Homme, &c., vol. vi. c a