EXTRACT XXXII. 



ON ATROPHY, HYPERTROPHY, AND DEGENERATION OF 

 MUSCLE AND SKIN TISSUES, FROM THE POINT OF 

 VIEW OF NEURO-MUSCULAR AND NEURO-DERMAL 

 NUTRITION AND INNERVATION. 



CONTENDING, as we do, that nerve and muscle, and nerve 

 and skin, are structurally and dynamically one in their 

 neuro-systemic relationships, and that they are indissoluble 

 in function as well as in histological continuity in physio- 

 logical evolution and development and in sources of 

 nutrition, we shall endeavour to apply these doctrines to 

 the elucidation of the phenomena involved in the above 

 conditions, and so prepare the way for, if possible, their 

 more scientific and effective obviation and treatment. 



The key to the situation thus created is what we should 

 call the great physiological law that nerve and the true 

 sarcous elements of muscle and the neuro-dermal elements 

 of skin alike owe their nutrition to the neuroglia provided 

 by the haemal circulation in the brain cord and ganglia, 

 where or from which the neurons primarily take up from 

 the neurological matrix the pabulum on which they feed, 

 as well as that on which all textures innervated and also 

 nourished by them are supported, and to which they by 

 growth or circulation convey it through their axons. 



This key provides, we think, the means by which the 

 etiology and evolution of the conditions known as atrophy, 

 hypertrophy, and degeneration of muscular tissue and 

 dermal texture respectively can best be realised and 

 appraised, and indications provided both for preventive 

 -and curative treatment. 



