On memory and the specific energies of the nervous system / by Prof. Ewald Hering.

  • Hering, Ewald, 1834-1918.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On memory and the specific energies of the nervous system / by Prof. Ewald Hering. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    a reproduction of the cell itself. This is most obvious in plants; the chief function of their cells is the work of growth, while in animal organisms other functions are predominant. Now, let me finally consider the phenomena in which the power of memory in organised matter is most striking. On the basis of numerous facts, we may justly as- sume that even such qualities of an organism can be transferred to its posterity as have not been inherited but have been acquired under peculiar circumstances of life. Thus, every organic being endows its germs with some small inheritance which has been acquired during the individual life of the parental organism and is added to the total legacy of the race. Considering that properties are inherited which have been developed in different organs of the paren- tal being, it has appeared highly enigmatic to investi- gators how these same organs could have influenced a germ developed in a distant place. So it has happened that as a solution of this problem mystic views have often been propounded. The subject may be best comprehended from a physiological standpoint, in this way. The nervous system, in spite of its being a com- pound of many thousands of cells and fibres, never- theless forms one coherent entirety. It is in communi- cation with all organs ; according to recent histolog- ical researches, it is believed that it is connected with