DEGENERATION OF TISSUES 179 



part of the trophic machinery of the systemic nervous 

 system or organism, and manifests itself in the production, 

 by the substituted chemical and physical energies conse- 

 quent on the lapse of neuro-dynamic or vital energy, of 

 textural changes, called degenerative, or what may be 

 regarded as analytic or dissolutive plasma or material 

 dispositions, leading to atrophy and ultimate textural 

 disappearance. 



Degeneration may, therefore, present itself in all degrees 

 of development and completeness according to the nature 

 of the structures involved, the length of time since their 

 trophic paralysis ensued, and the celerity of the chemical 

 and physical changes undergone by the paralysed textures, 

 besides what may be determined by the possible invasion 

 and modification of the degenerating materials by bacterial 

 organisms and materies morbi and their consequent con- 

 version into pabulum fit for new organisation on patho- 

 logical lines, and, it may be, for the evolution of definite 

 morbid entities, some of which may have the most far- 

 reaching influences on health and even life. 



Degeneration, arising from neuro-plasmic and neuro- 

 dynamic failure, may be regarded as a phenomenon of 

 constant occurrence in the economy of nutrition generally 

 in certain states of health and at certain stages of life in 

 even its physiological condition, where the analytic forces 

 begin to overtake and overwhelm the synthetic or forma- 

 tive forces, and to initiate changes which turn the healthy 

 metabolism of the tissues to pathological purposes or uses, 

 substituting by degrees a morbid for a healthy formative 

 regime, which ultimately, it may be, completely asphyxiates 

 normal growths and vital action. This applies equally to 

 the trophic phenomena characterising the nutrition of both 

 the systemically and sympathetically innervated structures 

 and organs, and to tissue metabolism generally and par- 

 ticularly. 



Degeneration, in the latter sense, is synonymous with 

 the disintegration, which "waiteth" on and followeth 

 integration in the process of nutrition, and becomes the 

 lot of every particle of integrated material or tissue fabric > 

 and, therefore, is physiological, while degeneration in the 

 pathological sense consists of the premature devitalisation 



