EDITORIAL. 



Since the days of Gerlach's reticulum there has been a 

 growing tendency among neurologists of all schools to lay great 

 stress on the functional importance of the neuropil, or felt- 

 work of finest non-medullated nerve terminations. It would 

 appear that here some of the most characteristic nervous reac- 

 tions take place, and that the peripheral fibrillar networks are 

 not less important. Just what these reactions are it is still too 

 early to affirm with confidence, but the problem is being at- 

 tacked from several sides and with a fair prospect of immediate 

 success in some of its phases. 



Anatomical interest centers now on neurofibrillae and 

 enough facts have already been gathered in to justify the pre- 

 diction that we shall not have to wait much longer for an accu- 

 rate knowledge of what the structure of the neuropil really is. 

 Physiological experimentation, too, is daily adding new facts 

 and developing new points of view. Undoubtedly both of 

 these classes of evidence must be greatly enlarged before we 

 shall be in a position to determine just how far the newer con- 

 ceptions of nervous function can be cast in the mold given by 

 the terminology of the neurone as current in the decade just 

 closed. Certain it is that we are not yet ready to throw away 

 that terminology ; for even a contracted and defective mold is 

 better than none so long as it turns out fruitful hypotheses and 

 promotes clear analysis and accurate expression, provided only 

 one does not make a fetish of it and in the end perhaps come 

 to venerate its very defects. Practically, even the most strik- 

 ing of our latest physiological experiments on the functional 

 differentiation of the nervous elements can still be expressed 

 more conveniently in terms of the neurone doctrine than in any 

 other way. 



