io6 Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



the thorax and some upon the abdomen. If the animal died im- 

 mediately there were no results detected in the nervous system 

 If, however, the animal lived thirty or forty hours, as some of 

 them did, well marked lesions were demonstrated. By Nissl's 

 method he found in the motor cells of the myel a perinuclear, 

 as well as a peripheral chromatolysis, also vacuoles in the cyto- 

 plasm and an eccentric position of the nucleus. By the Golgi 

 method he found deformation of the cell body but not to the 

 extent of atrophy, and a distinctly moniliform appearance of the 

 dendrites. 



An inference derivable from the above experiments, is that 

 changes of a structural character do not occur instantaneously 

 in the neurocyte, especially if the injury be not directly applied 

 to the nervous system. Parascondolo's experiments are of in- 

 terest in showing how soon the lesions may be induced through 

 the inter-dependence of the tissue systems. A comparison be- 

 tween these experiments and the results of electrical excitation 

 shows that fatal currents of electricity may induce changes in 

 the dendrites of the nerve cells in a practically instantaneous 

 period of time, under unfavorable conditions, as the current is 

 prevented from direct action upon the brain by the presence of 

 the meninges, bones of the cranium, and scalp. With the weaker 



Fig. 4. 



Fig. 4. After Cajal, showing the transformation of the bipolar into the 

 unipolar spinal ganglion cell. 



currents practically the nervous tissue alone was dealt with, un- 

 der the most favorable conditions. Other things being equal, 

 we may expect that a current of greater intensity will produce 

 given results in less time than a current half as great. Pugnat' 

 has demonstrated this in his experiments, finding that it required 



' Bibliog. Anat, VI, pages 27-32, 1898. 



