THE STUDY OF NEUROLOGY 235 



give to these manifestations an adequate expression would often 

 mean the passing in survey the functions of all the organs of the 

 body. This is a task which would be anatomically impossible, 

 since even the most extensive anatomical survey would fail to 

 take cognizance of the disarrangements of old coordinations and 

 the establishment of new ones. 



Almost equally important with the generalization that the mani- 

 festations of disease are largely compensatory or adaptive, i. e., 

 vital or physiological manifestations on the part of the organism, 

 is that which describes these changes as affecting not organs, but 

 functions. This view is justly made much of by Wolkow, who points 

 out that too close an adherence to the analytic methods of the 

 anatomist encourages a tendency to regard the body as a congeries 

 of organs, of tissues, and of cells, having an independence of each 

 other which, in reality, they do not possess. A mode of concep- 

 tion such as this robs the organism, regarded as a whole, of its in- 

 dividuality, and as a substitute for it we need to cultivate the habit 

 of regarding each individual as representing a vast system of in- 

 terlocking functions, partly known to us already, partly unknown. 

 It is during the disturbances and reorganizations of these func 

 tions, either in themselves or in their relations to each other, that 

 the symptoms of disease arise, and the problem of the physician 

 is to cast up the patient's account at each critical juncture, and 

 to reckon upon what assets, in a physiological sense, he has yet to 

 reckon, upon what powers of compensation and readjustment he 

 can still rely. In place of regarding the body so much by piece- 

 meal, we need to regard it more as a whole; as a supplement to 

 our study of structure we need a closer study of function. Some 

 diseases, as Wolkow suggests, could best be defined as disorders 

 of unknown functions. It is probable that, under the same prin- 

 ciple, those disorders which we now classify as due to premature 

 death of anatomical parts * could be more properly described as 

 due to the premature falling-out of more or less specialized func- 

 tions. 



In no department of pathology is it so difficult to arrive at satis- 

 factory conclusions by the aid of the anatomic method alone as in 

 the department of neural pathology. For it is the nervous system 

 upon which the organism preeminently depends for the very ex- 

 istence and efficiency of these interlocking functions which are 

 the basis of life. We can get on without admitting the existence 

 of matter, in the familiar sense of that word, but we cannot get on 

 without admitting the existence of energies, 2 superposed one over 



1 Termed by Gowers "abiotrophy." 



2 Of course, in the final analysis, it must be admitted that any given conception 

 of "energies" can be taken only in a symbolic sense. It is, however, at present, 

 the term most conducive to clear thought and adequate generalization. 



