ON THE NEUROGLIA 289 



familiarity, with the latest, and best, neurology, will, 

 we are convinced, bear excellent fruit, in the fields of 

 both general, and psychological, medicine, and will aid 

 in securing for these, as science, a position of greater, 

 exactitude, and respect. 



The neuroglia is, thus, the basal plasmic nerve sub- 

 stance, or texture, and occupies a very large proportion 

 of the space designed for the accommodation of the 

 proper nervine structures known as the brain and 

 spinal cord, besides the intra-ganglionic textures of the 

 systemic, as well as, sympathetic, ganglia. From the 

 formidableness of its proportions, and the inwardness, 

 and centralness, of its position, we would suppose, that 

 its functional r61e must be large, complex, and subtle 

 mechanically, it constitutes the padding, and stuffing, so 

 to speak, with which the inter-neuronal spaces are kept 

 " inflated," or occupied, and the contained, or interposed, 

 neurons, sustained in structural completeness, and indi- 

 viduality, without endangerment from collision, or friction, 

 with each other, or lethal contact with their general 

 environment ; physiologically, we hold, it constitutes 

 the great emporium, or storehouse, from which the 

 nutritive wants of the systemic nervous system are 

 supplied ; and physically, it is composed principally of 

 what may be described, as metamorphic or nutritive, 

 materials, ranging in pseudo-organised consistence, or 

 development, from the almost amorphous, to the some- 

 what corpuscular, in which condition, or state, it is 

 broken up, and absorbed, by the amoeboid activity of 

 the dendritic processes of the various nerve cells, and 

 licked into the condition of nerve cell protoplasm 

 while, supporting, and sustaining, all, there is, in turn, 

 a fibro-cellular framework (see Fig. 119) of the finest, and 

 most delicate, tissue known, within the meshes of which, 

 are deposited from the blood capillaries, the neuroglial 

 elements, to be arranged, kept vitalised, and stored, 

 for the future use of the systemic neuronal economy, 

 when, and wherever, required. 



The almost amorphous, or minutely particular, con- 

 dition, of a large part of the neuroglial elements, thus 

 renders, for their retention, or storage, in a position 



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