Meyer, Data of Modem Neurology. 311 



connection with the cell. To what extent the visible changes 

 of the cells during fatigue and intoxication are accompanied by 

 changes in the fibers, is not accessible yet to our methods; this 

 is a problem for the future ; and for this reason it seems im- 

 possible just now to decide from histological findings whether 

 the specific energy, whatever it may be, is produced in the cell- 

 body or whether the cell-body merely furnishes the nutritive ma- 

 terial. As to the detail structure, the nucleus is not specific 

 for nerve-cells, although, of course, each type of cells has a 

 characteristic form of nucleus. The Nissl-bodies are commonly 

 recognized as containing masses of nutritive material, preformed 

 or merely precipitated in the sections in the meshes of the non- 

 stainable substance. The latter is the subject of ardent con- 

 troversy. Held defends the Butschli-theory of the spongy 

 (wabige) structure of protoplasm and looks upon the fibrils as 

 the optic representation of the walls of a series of meshes or of 

 a honey-comb. The majority favor, however, the Filartheorie, 

 or fibril-theory. On the interpretation of the findings of Held 

 by Bethe's unpublished fibril method or some equivalent, a 

 great part of the points of contest will depend. Not till then 

 shall we be able to say whether the fibril or the neurone is the 

 unit of the substratum of nervous activity. 



In the meantime it seemed most practicable to ascribe to . 

 the neurone (the genetic cell-unit) a function as a unit. 



Whatever the function may be, we do not contradict any 

 established facts by assuming that the cells of the same type 

 and structure will probably have a similar range of connections. 

 The variety of functional activity is thus ascribed: i. to vari-' 

 eties of cell-type ; 2. to the fact that the cells are connected 

 among one another in various ways so as to form various me- 

 chanisms. What we know clinically as function (i. e. as equiv- 

 lents of motion and chemism) is always the expression of the 

 activity of a whole inecliaiiisni and we are not conscious of the 

 activity of the individual neurone except through the results of 

 its action in a chain. Further, what we know from electrical 

 tests cannot be identified directly with the action ; it is at best 



