On the relation of the nervous system to disease and disorder in the viscera.

  • Morison, Alexander.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation of the nervous system to disease and disorder in the viscera. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    occasion, Sir John Tuke interestingly described the changes which have been observed to result from the normal and artificial stimulation of nerve cells (their obscuration and irregularity induced by wakefulness and work, and their restoration of contour and original character by sleep and rest); brain cells, and the cells of the spinal centres, thus, like digestive or salivary cells, manifest changes indicative of work and non-work. When, how- ever, we come to the question of the registration of impressions, without apparent anatomical change of parts, we arrive at a theme which must still be treated entirely hypothetically, but changes associated with which must, nevertheless, be regarded as existent. Whether the registration of memory be m the cell, or merely rendered possible through the instrumentality of the cell, we cannot now say, and possibly never shall be in a position to assert positively; but that it would be impossible ivitliout the cell, and that the passage of impressions through the cell influ- ences the organic conditions of the latter, may be assumed to be so probable as to carry with it the assurance of certainty. Every possible explanation of the nature and seat of mind in its various manifestations, which the ingenuity of man, from pre-Platonic down to post-Cartesian times, could devise, has long ago been given. The operations of the mind can be described more or less interestingly by metaphysicians, but they cannot explain them any more than the child can the flight of an eagle as it soars into the empyrean, although it has the power to follow it with its eye for a short distance. Our inability to explain memory and many other elements of mind does not, however, shake our conviction that all these are the results of cellular activity, and upon the physical basis of mental acts and stored experiences I shall make some comment in the last lecture of the next series. On this point, also, with a clearness of statement and an elegance in diction characteristic of his writing. Dr. Maudsley remarks: Of no mental act can we say that it is 'writ in water'; something remains from it, whereby its recurrence is facilitated. Every impression of sense upon the brain, every cerebral reaction which passes into muscular movement, leaves behind it some modifica- tion of the nerve elements concerned in its function, some after effect, or, so to speak, memory of itself in them, which renders its reproduction an easier matter, the more easy the more often it has been repeated, and makes it impossible to say that, how- ever trivial, it shall not under some circumstances recur. Let 4