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into the cerebro-spinal axis. Its fibres are conducted to and from the 
viscera, along the course of the blood vessels. The peripheral ganglia 
are dominated by a still higher regulating centre, situated in the medulla 
oblongata, in relation with all the vaso-motor nerves throughout the 
system. Although the nature of its relations, with the medullary centre, 
are still uncertain, the fact that the fibres of the sympathetic, are mixed 
up on the vessels, with those having a vaso-motor function, and has to 
do with the calibre of the blood vessels generally ; with the activity of all 
the glandular organs; with the movements of all the hollow viscera, 
and with the nutrition of the tissues generally, places the sympathetic 
system in the front, as a central motive power. These are the circum- 
stances which count, in the operations of the system. When the tear 
and wear, can be so changed, by electrolytic action, as to afford, the 
freer transmission of normal nerve force, the constitutional changes for 
the better, become most marked. 
“There is a great probability that a nervous impulse may be a 
change propagated by electrical agency, and even in its essential nature 
an electrical phenomenon, a travelling and temporary dislocation of 
pre-existing discrete particles, and not a travelling process producing 
new and differently gifted particles from the o!c.” It is as solutions 
of electrolytes confined to minute cylinders, that nerve fibres have a 
most important interest, and yet the characters of these solutions, are 
beyond the reach of methods of ordinary chemical investigation. In 
the transmission of the electric current, it is well to be aware of the 
temarkable discovery of Du Bois Raymond, that the whole longitudinal 
nerve fibre, is probably equally positive, and the whole transverse surface, 
uniformly negative. In order to intensify the conduction of the electric 
current, moisture is not only necessary externally, but is well provided 
for internally, as the nerve fibre is, throughout, a moist conductor. 
Nerve fibres are in fact only finely drawn processes of cells containing 
inorganic salts within them, and the electrical conductivity, is provided 
by the electrotonic currents, and by their distribution. The axis 
cylinder of the nerve fibre, is a better conductor than the tissues which 
ensheath the fibre, and more electricity in fact, is carried or conveyed 
along the axis cylinders, than is at the same time carried, by the other 
tissues of the nerve. The electrical phenomena of nerve depend entirely 
on the inorganic salts which it contains, and from recent investigations, 
the nerve trunk has three kinds of conducting material; an external 
medium of poor conductivity, a dividing membrane, and an internal 
solution of conductivity, of a higher order than that of the external 
solution. 
