74 PHYSIC 



ferent ; thus the diseases affecting the tissues in which the 

 sensory nervature ends spread themselves by histological 

 continuity along and amongst the elements of these tissues 

 free from overlying mechanical hindrance, while those 

 involving the voluntary musculature are necessarily 

 moulded by surrounding structural limitations, direct and 

 indirect, and conform more or less exactly to the topo- 

 graphy of that musculature and its textural environments. 

 To make this plain, it may be sufficient here to refer to 

 two classes of disease, affecting respectively the sensory 

 and the motor areas of the systemic nervous system, with 

 the textures to which they are distributed, viz. the exanthe- 

 mata and the " morbi rheumatici." These two classes of 

 ailments are both typically illustrative of morbid agencies, 

 hatched in the remote intricacies of the central nervous 

 system, and finding an exit for their resultant toxic debris 

 along the channels of exit and least resistance into their 

 attached and innervated textures and organs, cutaneous 

 and muscular in both, although the results are so dif- 

 ferent, the manner of their evolution is the same. Kindred 

 agencies, working along different lines, producing different 

 effects, in accordance with the operation of the same laws, 

 on different structural elements. It becomes conceivable 

 here that the grouping of diseases generally, and their 

 classification, may be determined on simpler and more 

 scientific lines than those in use hitherto, and that valuable 

 indications for the application of curative and ameliorative 

 means may become more readily and rationally available. 



Another group of diseases of very large proportions is 

 embraced in this classification, in virtue of its nervine 

 origin, and becomes conformable to the same laws of 

 nervine distribution and evolution, viz. the nervine affec- 

 tions of the viscera generally ; in these, however, the 

 influences derivable from association with the sympathetic 

 nervature exercise a modifying influence on their inci- 

 dence ; nevertheless, it is essential to bear in mind that 

 the central nervous system is the fons et origo of these 

 maladies, and requires to be appealed to in any practical 

 measures that may be adopted for their removal or relief. 

 This group of diseases may be typified by the affections 

 known as the sequelae of many of the affections of the 



