4 SAMUEL JAMES MELTZER— HOWELL imsuo!ss l vouxxi L , 



His first appearance as an investigator is recorded in a brief note in the "Verhandlimgen 

 der Berliner physiologischen Gesellschaft," printed in the Archiv fur Physiologie, 1880, page 

 299. The communication to the society made by Kronecker in behalf of Herr Cand. Med. 

 Meltzer, was entitled, "Die Bedeutung des M. Mylohyoideus fur den ersten Act der Schluck- 

 bewegung." Kronecker had become interested in the mechanism of the act of swallowing, 

 and under his direction two of his students, Falk and Meltzer, were carrying on investigations 

 which demonstrated that the older view, namely, that the bolus is carried down by a progressive 

 peristaltic wave of the pharyngeal and oesophageal musculature, is not correct. In the first act 

 of swallowing the bolus is shot into the oesophagus by a contraction of cross-striated muscles, 

 and Meltzer's first paper gave a probable proof that the chief muscle concerned is the mylohyoid. 

 At a later meeting of the society in the same year Kronecker gave a second fuller paper by Melt- 

 zer and himself, "Ueber die Vorgange beim Schlucken," Archiv fiir Physiologie, 1880, page 446, 

 in which the outlines of their theory of swallowing were presented. This work, which was con- 

 tinued through several years, was published in full first, in the Monatsberichte der Konigl. 

 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, January 24, 1881, under the title "Ueber den Schluck- 

 mechanismus und dessen nervose Hemmungen," and later in more complete form in the Archiv 

 fiir Physiologie, supplementary volume, 1883, page 328, with the title "Der Schluckmecha- 

 nismus, seine Erregung and seine Hemmung." In its essential features their theory of swallowing 

 has been generally accepted in physiology. As stated above, the important new discovery that 

 they made was that the act of swallowing is initiated by a sharp contraction of the mylohyoid 

 and hyoglossi muscles. The effect of these contractions is to shoot the bolus of food, which lies 

 upon the dorsum of the tongue, through the pharynx and for a certain distance, depending on 

 the consistency of the material, into the oesophagus. The contraction of the constrictors of the 

 pharynx and the peristaltic wave along the oesophagus follow later, and in the case of soft foods, 

 at least, constitute a sort of movement in reserve. The whole act of swallowing was studied 

 with great care and many interesting observations were made, partly from experiments upon 

 animals and partly from experiments which Meltzer made upon himself. In later life he de- 

 veloped a very sensitive larynx, which he attributed to the irritations resulting from the long- 

 continued observations made upon his own deglutition. Some of these experiments must have 

 been exceedingly uncomfortable, as they involved the placing of rubber bags in the pharynx 

 and at different levels in the oesophagus to obtain graphic records, by means of connected tam- 

 bours, of the passage of the swallowed bolus. Those who knew Doctor Meltzer well will 

 realize that the intense earnestness which he threw into all of his work might easily have lead 

 him, in these experiments, to overstep the bounds of prudence, if thereby he could obtain evi- 

 dence for what he believed to be a true explanation of the process of swallowing. 



In connection with this work upon the mechanism of swallowing Meltzer under took, 

 presumably upon Kronecker's advice, the study of a special phase of the action of the 

 deglutition center as the subject for his doctor's thesis. The results were published in his 

 inaugural dissertation for the doctorate in medicine and surgery under the title "Das 

 Schluckcentrum, seine Irradiationen und die allgemeine Bedeutung derselben." This is dated 

 August 12, 1882, and is dedicated to Kronecker "in herzlicher Dankbarkeit." It was published 

 later, under a slightly different title, in the Archiv fiir Physiologie, 1883, page 209. It is a 

 suggestive and interesting paper on account of the careful analysis which it contains of the far- 

 reaching effects of the act of swallowing upon other centers of the nervous system. He shows 

 that the swallowing reflex influences, by irradiation or overflow, the centers for respiration, the 

 heart, the bloodvessels, the uterus, the erection of the penis, etc., thus making it probable that the 

 act of irradiation, so evident in the case of this relatively unimportant and infrequent move- 

 ment, is a general accompaniment of the activity of the centers of the nervous system. But 

 the main significance of this paper is to be found in the fact that it suggested to him certain 

 views regarding the importance of inhibition in the reactions of the central nervous system 

 or indeed of living matter in general. Thus early in his career he acquired a point of view in 

 regard to the role of inhibition in the life processes which greatly influenced his later work. 

 The idea or theory is outlined in this first paper, but is developed in greater detail in subse- 



