A recent tendency in descriptive neurology / by George L. Streeter.

  • Streeter, George Linius, 1873-1948.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A recent tendency in descriptive neurology / by George L. Streeter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    10 The first break in the traditional treatment was about ten years ago when Edinger published his enlarged book of lectures.1 He had dis- covered the advantage of combining the study of form and function, and produced a work best characterized as an embryological and com- parative anatomy illuminated by experimental and clinical data. Though he does not succeed in entirely breaking away from the time-honored method of dividing the brain, yet he does succeed in making one con- stantly feel that the brain is a living mechanism. The immediate ac- ceptance of this book and its consequent wide circulation and numerous editions testify to the appreciation of the innovation on the part of his readers. It was the same feeling for the functional character of the nervous system that influenced Meyer in his paper on brain structure.2 He is more radical than Edinger, and discards the morphological divi- sions such as the pons, mid-brain, etc., as units of description. In place he proposes to divide the nervous system into a series of functional trans- verse laminae or segments. These do not necessarily correspond to metameres. In the spinal region the portion of cord which corresponds to a single nerve root constitutes a segment. The cranial region he divides into five segments, based on their peripheral connections: 1. Visceral segment, regulating the mechanism of respiration, of articulation and deglutition. 2. Auditory-facial-abducens segment, regulating equilibrium, hearing, and the movement of eye, face, and ear muscles. 3. Mastication segment, regulating movements of jaw and sensation of face and fauces. 4. Optic segment, with optic nerve and muscles of eye-ball. 5. Olfactory segment, the only segment that has afferent fibers alone. These divisions are shown in the accompanying figure, which is based on Meyer’s Eig. 6, the cerebral and cerebellar mechanisms having been omitted. In these functional segmental units Meyer sees a repetition of type which he resolves into the following elements: 1. Segmental neurones—efferent and afferent nerves. 1 Edinger, L., Vorlesungen liber den Bau der nervosen Zentralorgane des Menschen und der Tiere, Leipzig, 1896. This was preceded a few years by a smaller book of ten lectures for physicians. Meyer, A., Critical review of the data and general methods and deductions of modern neurology. Jour, of Comp. Neurol., Vol. VIII, 1898.