Meyer, Data of Modern Neurology. 261 



able substance by cocci had occurred while the other tissue, 

 except the blood-vessels, was free from cocci, is very suggestive. 



During the process of repair after section of a nerve, Mari- 

 nesco (Comptes rend, de la Soc. de Biol., 1896) has found 

 gradual re-formation of the Nissl-bodies from the twenty-fourth 

 day ; even ninety days after the section the cell shows a hyper- 

 trophic condition, probably a sign of the effort of repair of the 

 nerve. (A pyramidal cell in this condition is probably Fig. 4 

 of Meyer's demonstration, J. of Insanity, 1897.) Whether pig- 

 ment is apt to remain, as the drawing of Meyer (Facial paral- 

 ysis, J. of Experimental Medicine, Nov. 1897) would suggest, 

 is uncertain. 



Fibril stains have not been published in this important re- 

 action. All we know is the alteration of the trophic substance 

 and the fibrillary substance remains to be studied. 



Apart from the traumatic reaction many other alterations 

 have been observed in the cell-bodies of motor neurones. Mari- 

 nesco has established a view very widely accepted, that the 

 ' traumatic ' lesion (the reaction to an injury of the fiber) is one 

 of the center of the cell with dislocation of the nucleus 

 to the periphery ; while the primary lesion of the cell 

 cell (toxic, anaemic etc.) begins with the chromatolysis in the 

 periphery of the cell.^ This does indeed justice to the ordinary 

 demands ; but more accurate study calls for a further classifica- 

 tion of the ' primary ' lesions of the cells. It would lead us 

 altogether too far away from our subject to enter here upon a 

 review of all the work of Nissl and his followers since Gold- 

 scheider's important study will give us all the principal data for 

 the neuro-pathological discussion. I restrict myself here to the 

 statement, that the chromatolysis may proceed in various fairly 

 typical manners, that the achromatic substance begins to take 

 the stain, that the nucleus becomes altered and that the degree 

 of alteration of the nucleus has been recognized by Nissl to be 



^Des polynevrites en rapport avec les lesions secondaires et les lesions prim- 

 itives des cellules nerveuses. Par Georges Marinesco, Revue Neurologique, 

 Vol: IV, pp. 129-I4I. With 7 drawings. 



