GENERAL PROPERTIES OF THE ECTOPLASM 



propagation of the nerve-impulse, for example, from a 

 sensory ending which receives the stimulus to end-organ 

 (e.g., muscle) which is aiTected, the impulse in traveling 

 over afferent nerves to central nervous system and from the 

 central nervous system to the efferent nerve, involves at 

 least two and, more frequently, several nerve cells. The 

 transfer of the impulse from nerve cell to nerve cell as well 

 as the connection between the efferent nerve and the end- 

 organ has been clearly demonstrated to be by means of 

 fine fibrils. These, the prolongations of the nerve-fibre, 

 are as clearly ectoplasmic as the fibres themselves. Thus, 

 the integrative action of the nervous system is established 

 by intercellular connections. I conceive all modes of inte- 

 gration in the body of a complex organism, as the verte- 

 brates and man, to be at basis dependent on intercellular — 

 ectoplasmic — connections. 



The central nervous system integrates all systems of the 

 body; these are at some distance from it and unlike it; the 

 glands of internal secretion in animals which possess them, 

 exercise even more remote control over one or another 

 system. A more passive integration — and of a lower order, 

 since it binds tissues only — is that by connective tissue. 

 Finally, by means of intercellular connections, like cells, 

 i.e., cells in the same sheet of tissue, are held together. 

 These different modes of integration one can not think of as 

 mutually exclusive; nor can one regard them as categori- 

 cally distinct and separate from the point of view of func- 

 tion. Only the order or level of integration — of all systems 

 of the organism, of some systems, of organs, of a tissue — is 

 a special, distinct one in each case. So much has been said 

 by authors and in so great detail concerning nerve- and 

 hormone-integrations, that no time here need to be taken 

 to discuss these types of integration. Suffice it to point 

 out that nerve action influences the chemical output of the 

 glands of internal secretion and that the secretions in turn 

 ma}' affect nerve-tissues; to an extent, therefore, they 



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