278 PSYCHIATRY 



termed necrobiosis, a word introduced into pathology by Virchow 

 and Schultz; it is understood to mean, according to Verworn, 

 "those processes that, beginning with an incurable lesion of the 

 normal life, lead slowly or rapidly to unavoidable death." 



Thus the principle of necrobiosis is to be studied in the cell as well 

 as its vital phenomena; and it is held to apply also to the death of 

 compound organisms. By an extension of this conception it explains 

 the condition of natural death in old age, which thus appears to be 

 physiological. Senile atrophy, which leads finally to death from the 

 feebleness of old age, is to be regarded as simply the end-result of 

 a long developmental series; death in old age is the natural end of an 

 unbroken development and its causes exist in the living organism 

 itself. Life itself never becomes extinct, but there is a continuity in 

 its descent ; yet living substance itself, in the form of bodies, is con- 

 tinually dying. 



Compare with the foregoing the views presented by Gowers * in 

 regard to "diseases from defect of life " to which he gives the desig- 

 nation "abiotrophy" to distinguish a newly differentiated clinical 

 group of conditions and symptoms; he acknowledges Mott's cotem- 

 porary recognition of these conditions. The conception is that of 

 "a degeneration or decay in consequence of a defect of vital endur- 

 ance; " it indicates a failure of life-processes due to defective vitality 

 which seems to be inherent. It is recognized that many degenerative 

 diseases of the nervous system are a result of such defect. The idea 

 is expressed by Mott: 2 "The neurones of a particular system die 

 prematurely, owing to an inherited or acquired want of durability, 

 and the regressive process of decay may be looked upon as a nu- 

 tritional failure on the part of the same cells to maintain that meta- 

 bolic equilibrium essential and correlative to functional activity." 

 Every nerve-cell of the human body is conceived to be "endowed 

 with a specific durability whereby in the health-perfect organism 

 every neurone possesses an equally adjusted vital energy." This is 

 a statement of one of the two ways in which the regressive process 

 occurs, the other being "the metamorphosis incidental to old age 

 manifested by a gradual and general enfeeblement of the functions 

 of the whole nervous system." "In contradistinction to this nor- 

 mal senile decay are the premature pathological processes of decay 

 attacking groups, systems, or communities of neurones subserving 

 special functions." "The process may be regarded as the inverse of 

 development; " in harmony with these views Hughlings Jackson is 

 quoted in regard to the helpfulness of considering diseases of the 

 nervous system "as reversals of evolution, that is, as dissolution." 

 Mott conceives that the process of primary degeneration is, morpho- 



1 Gowers, W. R., Abiotrophy, Lancet, 1902. 



2 Mott, F. W., The Degeneration of the Neurones, Croonian Lectures, 1900. 



