122 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
infer that nerves and nerve centres, the very motive power of the entire 
system, should also participate in some degree in those structural modi- 
fications, indicative of molecular change, and impaired functional 
activity. Recent discoveries in the line of nerve-tissue formation, 
have defined small cellular almost rod-shaped bodies, as compon- 
ents of cell nervous tissue, known as neurons, which take an im- 
portant place in the elimination of nerve power, and contribut- 
ing to the production of normal functional activity. One of the 
most interesting developments recently announced in Germany, 
France and America, is that nerve cells were capable of move- 
ment, to such an extent as to actually alter their original relationship 
one to the other. In 1890, Wiederschein, a German physiologist, saw 
in the “ Leptodara IHyalina,’ an invertebrate, one of the entomostraca, 
the nerve cells of the osophageal gangleon, move in a slow flowing 
fashion. This altered relationship almost molecular in character, may 
give a clue to a lessened functional activity and constitute the basis on 
which retardation rests. This constitutes the field of action, as to the 
therapeutic power of the electric current, which as,a known force is 
still in its infancy. At the convention of the American Electro-thera- 
peutic Association (Dec. 29th, 1894, “The Times and Register”), it was 
stated that static electricity causes contraction of the protoplasm both 
animal and vegetable, excites nerve fibres, nerve centres, and nerve cells, 
to functional action, and to produce their separate effects, motor, sen- 
sory, secretory, sympathetic and vasomotor. The recent observation 
of Prof. Herdman of the University of Michigan, reported in “ Elec- 
tricity,” April 18th, 1900, as follows: ‘“‘ That whenever a current of 
“ electricity traverses an animal body, the magnetic field resulting from 
“the current and surrounding its path, must disturb in some manner, 
“the molecular and atomic activities, that are going on in the tissues 
“and fluids, through which the current of electricity passes, in fact, in 
“such a manner as to rotate in some degree every molecule, so>as to 
“make it assume a different position from what it would, if not thus 
“acted upon,” and draws the deduction, “that alternating magnetic 
stress is in some way related to quickened metabolism of tissue ; that 
the magnetic energy goes through some sort of transformation, and re- 
appears as physiological energy.” During the past few years, in noting 
the results of failing nerve power, as indicated by functional inactivity, 
in tissues and organs generally, I have been more and more impressed 
with the vast importance of a thoroughly established balance of power 
in each structure of the human body and particularly with reference to 
The Nervous System. In the examination, no organ should be passed 
over casually, or even section of the body, as difficulties creep up almost 

