2<> FUNCTIONAL INERTIA 



ganglia of the cat have much inertia towards 

 nicotine ; those of the rabbit little, but even in any 

 one animal Professor Langley has shown that great 

 variations in responsiveness exist in the different 

 ganglia. 



Insusceptibility has long been recognised in, e.g., 

 the uterus by gynaecologists who speak of " uterine 

 inertia "when they find that the organ does not con- 

 tract on the foetus after a drug has been given quite 

 as quickly as they would like. The term is accurate : 

 this uterine inertia is the greater according as affect- 

 ability is the less, e.g., in women no longer young. 



But Dr. Hale White * has extended the term to 

 the alimentary canal and speaks of " colonic inertia " 

 " congenital inertness " of the colon an equally 

 defensible expression. 



In Dr. Sharkey' s Presidential Address to the 

 Neurological Society (Feb. 4, 1904) t I came across 

 the expression, " the functional inertia of nerve-cells 

 ... in the cord," and again, " the inertia of cells of 

 the cord." Dr. Sharkey, writing to me in February 

 1905, kindly informed me in answer to my inquiry, 

 that when he composed the address he did not know 

 of my views. His use of the very terms I had 

 suggested four years previously is an indication of 

 their usefulness as I had predicted ; but I now go 

 farther and say that it is the possession by living 

 protoplasm of the property of inertia that has given 



* Hale White in Clifford Allbutt's " System of Medicine," vol. iii. 

 p. 971. 



t Dr. Sharkey, Brain. Spring number, 1904, p. n. 



