( 1146 ) 
mens of the Siboga collection are encrusting and sections of decalcified 
specimens simulate a boring sponge; in reality Spirastrella does not 
itself perforate, but easily fills up holes and slits of a calcareous 
substratum, destroyed by other organisms. As such I found e.g. 
Thoosa and certain Fungi ’). 
Physiology. — “The action of strychnine on the Central Nervous 
System. The segmental, strictly localized strychnine-intorication 
of the dorsal spinal mechanisms: a contribution to the derma- 
tomery of the hind leg in dogs.” By Dr. J. G. Dusser Du 
BARENNE. (Communicated by Prof. C. WINKLER). 
(Communicated in the meeting of February 25, 1911). 
In a former communication’) [| endeavoured to prove that the 
theory, as if strvehnine-tetani may have their origin in an intoxication 
by this alkaloid of the dorsal, co-ordinatory spinal mechanisms, is to 
all probability an erroneous one. 
The application of the poison exclusively on the dorsal surface of 
the medulla, never gives rise to tetani as its consequence, but always 
to another complex of symptoms, which was deseribed by me as the 
Syndrome of strychnine-intoxication of the dorsal spinal mechanisms: 
1. Subjective disturbances of sensibility, most probably presenting 
a paraesthetical character. 
(Finding their expression in the frog by “Abwischbewegungen’, in 
the doe by licking and biting the skin). 
2. Hyper-reflectory actions. 
3. Spontaneous muscle-shocks, viz. arising without any exterior 
cause being observable, but still for the greater part proceeding ina 
reflectory manner. 
Already with the first experiments it became evident that, whilst 
this complex of symptoms in itself is constant and characteristic, the 
skin-field in which these disturbances of sensibility (both subjective 
and objective ones) occur, is variable as to place and extension, 
1) Extensive descriptions accompanied by illustrations, will appear in the Results 
of the ‘“Siboga-Expeditie’’, which is in the press. 
2) DuSSER DE BARENNE, Die Strychnin-wirkung auf das Zentralnervensystem. II. 
Folia neurobiologica. Band V, Heft 1, 1911. Provisory communication iz Zentralblatt 
f. Physiologie. Band XXIV. NO, 18, 1910. 
