582 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



co-ordination and automatic equilibration had 

 further to be dealt with. To lind whether a 

 brain worked as well after a small quantity of 

 alcohol was taken as it did before, some means 

 of exactly comparing the condition of the activity 

 of the brain under these different circumstances 

 was necessary. The easiest way to do this was to 

 measure what was called the " reaction time," 

 or the very small fraction of a second which was 

 consumed by the nervous system while it received 

 an impression and executed some movement in 

 response to it. Kraepelin, who had made the 

 most accurate investigations of this subject, had 

 found that the simple reaction period was slightly 

 quickened after the ingestion of a small amount 

 of alcohol, but that very speedily a slowing be- 

 gan, and became more marked, and endured as 

 long as the alcohol was in active operation in 

 the body; so that the time spent by the com- 

 plex reaction or a reaction in which there was 

 an association of ideas was never quickened by 

 the alcohol. On the whole a very distinct and 

 depressing effect on the highest centers of the 

 brain was produced. With reference to the effect 

 of alcohol on voluntary movement it should be 

 remembered that the energy producing a single 

 contraction of a muscle was manifested in an 

 intermittent manner; it was not one impulse, but 

 a succession of impulses. Under the influence of 

 alcohol the normal summation of these impulses 

 was interfered with, and what was known as a 

 tremor was produced. The results of Kraepelin's 

 dynamometer measurements of the effect of 

 small doses of alcohol on the voluntary centers 

 showed, as in the former case, that an apparently 

 additional amount of work was put out at first, 

 but the acceleration or stimulation was quickly 

 followed by the lowering or depressing effect. 

 The effect of a dose of tea was spoken of as in 

 marked contrast with this. No lowering effect 

 is seen when tea is taken beyond the one due to 

 normal fatigue common to all experiments. The 

 apparent acceleration induced at first by alcohol 

 has not been explained, but it may result from a 

 loss of control. It " was not to be regarded as a 

 real thing, but as an evidence of the paralyzing 

 and deleterious effect of alcohol." The next sub- 

 ject for consideration was the influence of the 

 drug on the cerebellum. A close association has 

 been found to exist between the muscles of the 

 lower limbs and this organ, and one of the fur- 

 ther effects of alcohol in slightly larger doses 

 than those which had been under consideration 

 was to destroy the special function of the cere- 

 bellum and produce a sensation of tremor and 

 weakness in the legs, causing the victim to stag- 

 ger and find standing difficult. While it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to demonstrate scientifically the 

 immediate chemical effect of alcohol on the nerve 

 cells, it has been ascertained that under its pro- 

 longed use the granular masses in the Purkinje 

 cells disappear, the protoplasm of the body of the 

 corpuscle loses its distinctive structure, and the 

 nucleus is very greatly altered and distorted in 

 shape. Under the toxic influence of tonic alco- 

 holism the dendrites of the pyramidal cells ex- 

 hibit swellings and shrinkages. A remarkable 

 constant feature of degeneration in the alcoholic 

 person's brain is widespread pigmentation in the 

 nerve cells an exaggeration of a normal fact, 

 accompanied by shrinkage of the protoplasm of 

 the cell. The author gave as his conclusion that 

 from a scientific point of view the contention so 

 often put forward that small doses of alcohol, 

 such as people take at meals, have practically 

 no pernicious effect could not be maintained. 

 It is an established fact that the extinct mam- 



malia of the middle and lower Tertiaries had, as 

 compared with their nearest living congeners, an 

 extremely small cerebrum. The same is the case 

 in comparing anthropoid apes and man. The sig- 

 nificance of the difference has been studied by 

 Prof. E. Ray Lankester, who regards the fact as 

 associated with the development of the faculty of ; 

 educability. The earlier animals were possessed 

 of the instincts and the faculties of performing 

 certain acts appertaining to their species, but were 

 incapable, or nearly so, of individual development. 

 The growth of this faculty which the author calls 

 educability is associated with increase in the size 

 of the cerebrum. " A mere spoonful of cerebral 

 tissue is sufficient to carry abundant and highly 

 efficient instinctive mechanism from generation to 

 generation, but for the more valuable capacity of 

 elaborating new brain mechanism in the individual 

 as the result of the individual's experience of sur- 

 rounding conditions a very much larger volume 

 of cerebral tissue is needed." Prof. Lankester ap- 

 plies this view to biological development and evo- 

 lution, and to the question of the inheritance of 

 acquired faculties. 



In an evening lecture, delivered at the meeting 

 of the British Association, Prof. F. Gotch said that. 

 animal electricity, if strictly interpreted, had a 

 most extensive scope commensurate with all forms 

 of animal life. This large scope gave the study 

 of electro-physiology all its importance, an im- 

 portance accentuated by the belief that electrical 

 disturbance was the safest index as to the state 

 of the living molecular poise, the poise which ob- 

 scured, if it did not constitute, the mystery of life. 

 The study had, however, a special significance in 

 connection with one class of living structures, 

 namely, those which constitute the nervous sys- 

 tem. There was no doubt that organs of an essen- 

 tially nervous type exist, the prime object of whose 

 activity is the production of electrical disturbance. 

 Of these the author considered especially the elec- 

 tric organs of certain fishes, concerning which he 

 discussed four successive questions: First, what are 

 the peculiar structural features which all electrical 

 fish show, and how far these account for their 

 extraordinary powers; second, what are the char- 

 acters of the electrical shocks which these fish are 

 able to give ; third, what are the characters of the 

 relatively insignificant electrical effects produced in 

 a nerve when traversed by a nervous impulse; and, 

 fourth, whether the two classes of electrical effects, 

 those of the electrical fish and those of all nerves, 

 could be regarded as fundamentally the same phe- 

 nomena, in spite of their apparent dissimilarity. 

 After describing the electric organs of fishes and 

 their power, the speaker said that the nerve elec- 

 trical effect was very similar to that present in 

 each disk of the electrical organ. He then brought 

 forward evidence to show that there must be an 

 electrical disturbance in the nerve endings of an 

 organ whenever a nervous impulse might be pro- 

 duced outside the nerves. The astounding effect- 

 produced by the electrical organs of fishes thm 

 have their physiological counterparts in the nerves 

 and in this as in other departments of natural 

 science Nature shows no gulf. 



Studies of the centripetal and centrifugal incd 

 ullated nerve fibers arising in the spinal ganglia <>' 

 the mammal were made by H. H. Dale for the 

 two purposes of determining the relative number 

 of medullated fibers centrally and proxinmlly <> 

 the spinal ganglion and of finding the relative 

 number of the fibers of any given size in the same 

 situations. An exact knowledge of these point -i 

 would go far toward deciding whether any liliei t 

 end free in the spinal ganglion; whether either of 

 the cell processes divides in the ganglion or soon 



