THE TWO NERVOUS SYSTEMS 365 



of complexity, thus affording a kaleidoscopic vista of 

 never-ending study to the exponents of clinical, and 

 physiological, medicine. Paralysis, motor, and sensory, 

 in all its degrees, illustrates the partial, or complete, 

 breakdown of the systemic nerve organism, while necrosis, 

 or gangrene, illustrates the breakdown of the sympathetic 

 nerve organism, both breakdowns owing their origin to 

 failure of their respective nerve structures, or of the supply 

 of the proper nutritional, or materio-dynamic, elements, on 

 which the continuity of life depends. Each occurs inde- 

 pendently of the other, and runs a course, determined 

 by its own structural, and functional, character, and 

 relationships. 



This deduction, and formulation, of the principles of 

 duality, and individuality, of the nervous system, may be 

 said to warrant the further deduction that, besides con- 

 stituting the mainspring of vegetative, and animal, life, 

 and supplying the energy for the maintenance of volun- 

 tary, and intellectual, activity, from its universal combined 

 distribution, to the entire cell and fibre commonwealth 

 of the body; it may be, in actuality, regarded, as not 

 existing apart from, but, as actually constituting, that 

 organic commonwealth of cell and fibre, and as acting, 

 by, and through, it, in the performance of its manifold 

 functions, in the manner, as it were, both of producer, 

 and user, or as both citizen, and president, so to speak, 

 of that commonwealth, in one. Each division of the 

 nervous system exists, and acts, apart, or separately, in 

 the performance of its peculiar, or individual, functions, 

 but conjointly in certain communal nerve functions, such 

 as the alimentary, and respiratory. 



The sympathetic nerve cells, grow by kariokinetic 

 division, and build up, through their growth, the whole, 

 so called, non-nervous textures of the body, by a process 

 of proliferation, which continues to make progress, or 

 increase, until the attainment of adult age, after which 

 it is reduced in proportions, but continues, to the degree, 

 commensurate with, the maintenance of tissue renewal, 

 and integrity ; on the other hand, and in entire contrast 

 to the sympathetic nerve cells, which are synonymous 

 with the cells of the whole non-nervous structures of the 



