The involuntary nervous system / by Walter Holbrook Gaskell.

  • Gaskell, Walter Holbrook, 1847-1914.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The involuntary nervous system / by Walter Holbrook Gaskell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was essentially a system concerned with the innervation of the alimentary canal and its glands. Following upon this separation of the two central nervous systems came the separation of the nerve fibres belonging to them, consequent upon the discovery by Remak of non-medul- lated fibres which belonged entirely to the sympathetic system ; later Joh. Muller, taking into consideration the fact that the rami communicantes were partly grey and partly white, put for¬ ward the proposition that the white fibres were cerebro-spinal and the grey sympathetic, so that there was a reciprocal con¬ nexion between the two nervous systems, the animalic centres sending animalic fibres to the organic centres, which in their turn s^nt organic fibres to the animalic centres. Thus Bichat’s teaching appeared to be based on the strongest possible foundations of fact, and the absolute independence of the animalic and organic nervous systems established. Furthermore the very conception of this separate organic system, together with the position of its main mass in the solar ganglia, firmly inculcated the view that the sympathetic system was essentially connected with the viscera, and even to this day comparative anatomists, on the discovery of nerves going to the intestines of some invertebrate animal, frequently describe them as representing the sympathetic nerves in such an animal. A further extraordinary conception, which arose out of the teaching of the absolute independence of this organic system, and was held somewhat largely, and taught by some anatomists when I began my medical studies, was that the sympathetic system represented the central nervous system of such invertebrates as insects and that the cerebro-spinal system was superadded, being special to the vertebrate. Bichat’s views were largely prevalent when I took up the question and determined to settle whether there was a reciprocal communication between the two systems. For this purpose I cut serial sections through the rami communicantes and through the roots of the spinal segmental nerve after treatment with osmic acid, and found, as was well known, that the main mass of the non-medullated fibres, after entering the spinal segmental nerve, turned peripheral-wards along the nerve, but that a smaller number proceeded along the roots towards the spinal cord. On tracing these latter, which especially went along the posterior root, they