NEUROLOGY AT THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CONGRESS, HEIDELBERG, 

 1907, AND AT THE CONGRESS TOR PSYCHIATRY, NEUROLOGY, 

 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE NURSING OF THE INSANE, AMSTER- 

 DAM, SEPTEMBER, 1907. 



At both of the congresses named above considerable attention was paid to 

 topics that are of special neurologica interest. Owing to the difference in the 

 membership, the character of the papers differed in the two congresses, the papers 

 at the Physiological Congress being largely of a purely scientific character, while 

 those at the Amsterdam Congress treated more especially matters in connection 

 with human diseases. In the later congress more attention was devoted to the 

 anatomy of the nervous system than in Heidelberg, although at both the functional 

 study was very prominent. At Heidelberg about half of the sessions of one section 

 were occupied with papers concerned with the central nervous system and the 

 special senses, and at Amsterdam half of the time of the section of neurology and 

 psychiatry and some of the time of the section of psychology and psychophysics were 

 so devoted. Many of the most prominent physiological neurologists were present 

 at the Physiological Congress and few attended the Congress at Amsterdam, 

 although the representation of the clinical neurologists at Amsterdam was large and 

 most important. In addition to those whose papers are abstracted below may be 

 mentioned: Bethe, Edinger, Exner, Gotch, Hering, Luciani, Munk, Nagel, 

 NissL, RiCHET, Schafer, V. TscHERMAK, V. Uexkull, and Verworn at the 

 Physiological Congress; and v. Bechterew, Cajal, v. Gehuchten, v. Jelgersma, 

 Langelaan, Mott, Obersteiner, Oppenheim, Winkler, and Westphal at 

 the Congress of Neurology and Psychiatry. 



Among so many papers it is almost impossible to select those that are of most 

 importance to the readers of the Journal, but the following abstracts give a fair idea 

 of the diversity of subjects and of the character of the work presented at the two 

 meetings.^ 



Professor Gaskell (Cambridge), A , gave a general account of his views on the 

 evolution of the vertebrate nervous system, which are already known to some of the 

 readers of the Journal. He considers the vertebrate central nervous system to be 

 developed phylogenetically from the coelenterate type of oral nervous ring. Onto- 

 genetically there are two types of tissues in the body, the master tissues, connected 

 with nervous system, and the free cells of the body which arose as modifications 

 of the germ cells. The central nervous system has been developed from the 

 combination of the nervous and the alimentary systems; the infundibulum is the 

 relic of the development from the early oesophagus, the crura represent oesophageal 

 commissures, the spinal cord is the ventral chain of ganglia, and so on. All the 

 principal parts of the vertebrate type of nervous system were compared with parts 



1 In the report of each paper will be found after the name of the man presenting the paper a letter 

 indicating the congress at which the communication was read: A, for Amsterdam; H, for Heidelberg. 



