“DIE LOKALISATION IM GROSSHIRN”’ 489 
From the experiments of Sherrington and others as described, it 
follows that in the spinal cord of higher mammals and, as my own 
observations show, apparently even of man, there must be present 
elements other than the direct receptor and effector cells themselves 
which retain a stimulus for a longer period than these (i.e., than the 
direct receptors and effectors). Included therein are found nerve cell 
elements which are excited by individual incoming fibers, facilitated 
through the summation of stimuli by others and again inhibited by 
still others. Single nerve cells in the spinal cord apparently return to 
a condition of rest after a short period of excitation, immediately after 
the completion of the specialized function assigned to their neurone 
complex, and again become receptive to new stimuli. Other cells, 
however, undoubtedly remain in a condition of excitation for a longer 
period—minutes or more—after the stimulus coming to them has 
been interrupted. In other words, we find in the spinal cord elements 
extremely variable in their duration of charge, both positively and 
negatively (mnestic elements) such as I have long postulated in the 
brain, with brief, intermediate or long duration of charge (Ladung). 
There must also be present here well organized groups of neurones 
which are effective, that is, which can discharge, only by means of a 
complex summation of stimuli each (action) in a qualitatively different 
manner and a different duration; and among them are groups which 
form the connecting links of a chain of acts released in succession, 
and which remain functional throughout the course of a reflex move- 
ment; they carry the ‘kinetic melody’ as the notes of a chord accom- 
panying the tune.? 
Von Monakow’s views represent the growth of years. We 
may take as one starting point the view expressed in 1895 that, 
in a series of vertebrates, essentially similar nervous reactions 
involve more numerous and more widely scattered groups of 
cells and fiber tracts in the higher animals than in the lower. 
The logical development of this idea means abandoning the 
notion of sharply circumscribed centers particularly in the 
cerebrum, for various acts, which he does. 
The issue is squarely joined, therefore, with two other oppos- 
ing camps. There is, on the one hand, the issue between the 
adherents of the Goltzian view that the effects of shock may 
persist, undiminished if need be, for months or years, with its 
consequent negative view of cerebral localization, and the ad- 
herents of the view that shock, if present at all, is more or less 
2T am indebted to Mrs. C. S. Winkin for assistance in the translation. 
THE JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE NEUROLOGY, VOL. 29, NO. 5 
