Editonal. 33 



spaces and are regarded by Golgi as protoplasmic or nutritive as 

 contrasted to nervous or excitory fibres. Van Gehuchten, it is 

 true, feels confident that Cajal is correct in denying any such 

 radical distinction in function, but, in any case, the absorbtive 

 power of a cell must be greatly increased by such intimate com- 

 munication with the .spongy neuroglia and its circulating vital 

 sap. In a recent address, Jan. 20, 1891, before the scientific 

 club of Vienna, Prof Meynert takes up the subject from the 

 same point of view. "What is sleep ? Obscure as its chemism 

 undoubtedly is, it may be compared to an intermission of the 

 pump-like suction of the cortex — a temporary loss of the mole- 

 cular attraction which supplies the cells, fibres and centres of 

 consciousness with nutritive plasma and at the same time sucks 

 away at the permeable surfaces of the fine capillaries, fills them 

 with blood and produces a functional hyperaemia, a congestion 

 of the active organ. 



This loss of the functional attraction may take place very 

 quickly, as illustrated in the falling asleep of children who 

 seemed perhaps in the previous moment wide awake." The 

 author applies the same explanation to the phenomena of epi- 

 leptic fainting, hysterical and hypnotic conditions. In the latter 

 the cortical nutrition is sluggish while the subcortical centres, 

 being more directly supplied with blood, and thus at a higher 

 pressure, are still active. The possibility of suggestion lies in 

 the fact that the influence of another supplies the subcortical 

 ganglia with the impulses ordinarily derived from the cortex. 



The continual gazing at a fixed point serves to divert the 

 blood supply, while the expectancy causes exhaustion of the 

 cortex, facilitating the hypnotic state. 



It is interesting to learn that the theory proposed by 

 Meynert of the differential nutrition of the central ganglia and 

 the cortex gives a physiological basis, in a certain sense, to the 

 view held by the psychology of the middle ages that the soul 

 wanders out of the cerebrum into lower parts of the nervous 

 system during sleep. 



In general, the arena upon which dreams disport them- 

 selves is more or less completely disassociated from that of prac- 



