Meyer, Data of Modem Neurology. 263 



A, Beck/ Beck chose nerves which did not contain any cen- 

 tripetal fibers which might have excited the muscle of the ex- 

 perimental nerve by the way of a reflex ; he isolated the nerve 

 for a long distance and applied an induction current just strong 

 enough to obtain a minimal contraction. He found that the 

 current had to be stronger the more centrally he excited the 

 nerve. The same result was obtained when he used an accur- 

 ately gauged galvanic current. While, of course, stimulation 

 is far from being the same as genuine neural activity, the ex- 

 periment would vindicate a greater independence of the fiber 

 from the cell as far as function is concerned, than for nutrition 

 and vitality and this experiment might be adduced as a 

 starting point for investigations by those who see the neural 

 unit in the fibril, not in the cell, unless we should be able to 

 prove that the fibril is merely a conductor of the electric current 

 and the contraction of the muscles a result of this electric stim- 

 ulus. In this case the result of Beck's experiment would be 

 just what one would require, and nothing would be gained from 

 it for the activity of the neurone. 



Gowers, in the Dynamics of Life (London, 1894) stands 

 on this ground and urges (p. 37) that neural energy is gener- 

 ated in the fibrils of the spongy substance, not in the cell-body. 

 For him, the fiber is generator and conductor. While in this 

 and the subsequent discussion I pass over this view, I think 

 it but fair to mention the above experiment of Beck as a possi- 

 ble element of discord for the future. 



Another suggestion made by Onufrowicz in the New York 

 Hospitals Bulletin, 1897, would deserve notice here as a future 

 problem. He assumes that the inhibitory influence of the pyr- 

 amidal tract is obtained not by a contact of the cerebral effer- 

 ent (indirect motor) neurones with the cell-bodies or dendrites 

 of the segmental motor neurones, but only with the collaterals 

 of the axone of these neurones. Ingenious as this may be, it 

 is mentioned here merely as a possible problem for the future. 



1 A. Beck, Die Enegbarkeil ver^chiedener Stellen desselben Nerven. Arch, 

 f. Auat. und Pliys. Phys. Abt., H. V. and VI, 1897. 



