1240 



When I published this eomrniinicalion ') èi propos of van Kijnberk's 

 tabular scheme') the latter') maintained that the fact of the "nose 

 of FuNKK." still occurring after extirpation of the sympathetic does 

 not prove in the least that the stimulations which cause this pheno- 

 menon, do not travel by the sympathetic fibres, when they are 

 uninterrupted. 



Little is to be said against this argument, but on examining it 

 closely, it is yet somewhat sophistical. 1 am of the opinion that, 

 when during an experiment a phenomenon occurs, notwithstanding 

 the experimental circumstances and conditions, one has a right 

 provisionally to draw the conclusion that the phenomenon con- 

 cerned is not dependent on those experimental circumstances and 

 conditions. 



What value van Rijnberk attaches to his own objection is evident 

 from the fact, that, if he had thought it serious, he would have left 

 his own essay on the connection between sympathetic innervation 

 and decerebate rigidity unwritten. Furthermore does he himself sin 

 against it in the same fable, a few lines higher. F'or he ought at 

 least to have put a? after the sympathetic genese of the second 

 veratrine top. This one indeed is also present after extirpation of 

 the sympathetic. 



Van Rijnberk doe.s not however infer from this, as one might 

 expect from his above-mentioned reasoning that therefore stimulations 

 causing the second veratrine top under normal innei-vation conditions 

 might travel along the sympathetic fibre, but he concludes that the 

 sympathetic has nothing to do with the second top. 



This last reasoning and experimental fact are quite in harmony 

 with my own opinion and ex})erience. For it has been prox ed that both 

 during the acute experiment and the chronic, when the sympathetic 

 nerve tibres are degenerated, the second veratrine top still occurs 

 in the muscle contraction, caused by stimulation of the spinal cord, 

 either electrical or mechanical. 



the nose occurs Cf. for this viz. T. Graham Brown. Pflüger's Archiv. Band 125, 

 1908, p. 491. We do not know yet what is the meaning of the "nose of Funke". 

 In my opinion it is not impossible that several different phenomena are hidden 

 behind this. For the sake of brevity 1 used the term "nose of Funke" without 

 pronouncing as my opinion that this is a well known single phenomenon. 



^ ) Spiertonus en ontherseningsstijf heid. Nederl. Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 

 1917, I, p. 1756. 



') Van Rijnberk. Spiertonus en ontherseningsstijf heid. Nederl. Tijdschr. voor Genees- 

 kunde, 1917, I. p. 1634. 



3) Answer of van Rijnberk to the remark cited Nederl. Tijdschrift voor Genees- 

 kunde, 1917, 1, p. 1757. 



