38 PHYSIC 



a negative character, i.e. an affection arising out of a 

 failure in the supply of nerve protoplasm to some or all 

 of the voluntary muscles, and a consequent atrophy of 

 these structures ; this failure, of course, may arise primarily 

 in the neuronal or cell economy of a part or the whole of 

 the motor areas, in obliteration of the axonal processes of 

 the various neurons from which the neuro-sarcous ele- 

 ments are derived, in a breakdown of the end-plate 

 structures of the motor nervature involved, or in the 

 inability of the affected musculature to take advantage 

 of the proffered neural protoplasm but from whatever 

 of these causes the affection proceeds, or arises, the result 

 is the same, sarcous atrophy or myopathy. 



The nervi communicantes, proceeding from the central 

 nervous system, to join and to supplement, or reinforce, the 

 sympathetic system, seem to establish or set up a " buffer" 

 or mixed system of innervation, partaking of the characters 

 of both systems, and, therefore, subject to invasion from 

 diseased conditions or materies morbi from both, which 

 diseased conditions are necessarily coloured or conditioned, 

 so to speak, by the proportion in time, intensity, and ex- 

 tent of the prevalence of the disease, and whether it is 

 contributed by the one or the other system in a greater or 

 lesser proportion. This ganglionic or mixed system of 

 nervine structures, being enterable from both the systemic 

 and sympathetic nervatures proper, is, therefore, subject 

 to diseases commencing in either or both the neural or 

 haemal elements, and may free itself from them by elimi- 

 nation of their diseased products, through either or both 

 systems, along their respective excretionary vasculatures, 

 and through the exits provided for the completion of that 

 function hence, therapeutic assistance can be directed 

 along one or both or on mixed lines, according to the 

 character of the particular morbid condition and the indi- 

 cations afforded. In this debatable field of innervation, 

 moreover, will be found the favourite locale for the origin 

 of much of the neoplastic structural new growth to be 

 met with throughout the human organism. In this field 

 unite the neural and haemal tissue elements ; here blend 

 the formative energies of two systems of innervation, or, 

 it may be, two divisional areas of one innervation, which, 



