RECENT NEUROLOGICAL PROGRESS. 285 



schon vorwarts kommt " (Munk). 1 The cortex may thus be 

 likened to a black hot ember which under the breath of 

 " attention " is made to glow at one point or another ; but, 

 not only may the oxygen stream upon it be now more now 

 less, there affect it also seasons of intrinsic excitement, when 

 the same stimulus will make it glow more fiercely than at 

 others. Ruins of cell groups and miserable paucities of fibres, 

 insufficient to awake or propagate reactions under ordinary 

 circumstances, then become sufficient. Of similar origin may 

 be the temporary improvements that often mercifully break 

 the monotony of a relentlessly progressive, at least never 

 really regressive, chronic nerve-disease. The condition is 

 akin to, though it includes more than, mere increase of 

 "suggestibility": normal barriers become strengthened as 

 well as ways more easy. 



Among the disturbances caused by cerebral injury a 

 part pass rapidly away. These " hemmungserscheinun- 

 gen " or inhibitions are due to irritation radiating from the 

 seat of trauma. With modern aseptic traumata these 

 irritative disturbances can hardly last more than a few days. 

 The role ascribed to them has probably been exaggerated. 

 The amount of true return of function has probably also been 

 over-estimated. Improvement of symptoms need not mean 

 return of actions. The shoemaker, who after Rolandic 

 lesion lost power in the hand, and was unable to pick up his 

 awl betwixt the thumb and index, after a time, though still 

 unable with the thumb and index, effected the same thing 

 with the thumb and medius. 2 Such compensatory actions 

 attain the original object by circuitous route. They serve, 

 according to Luciani, in manifold instances to alleviate the 

 trouble after cerebellar ablations. Real restitution of the 

 original action seems little possible. The cells of the 

 nervous system are laid down in certain quantity at an 

 early epoch of embryonic life and unlike many in the body 

 are " without power to add to their number". Numerically 

 their installation is from an early date complete. Removed 



1 Siizungb. d. k. pr. Akad. d. Wiss. Z. Berlin, xxxix., p. 2. 



2 R. Lepine, Rev. Mensuelle de Medec. et de Chirurgie, 1880, p. 765. 



