4 i 6 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



innervated body, but becomes of paramount importance 

 in the human body, where nervine agency is in evidence 

 infinitely beyond the proportions existing in any of the 

 lower animals, in which its production and conservation 

 seldom reach the degree of explosive dimensions fre- 

 quently attained in man. 



We thus realise the value, to some extent, of the com- 

 bined evolutionary continuity and distinctness, structural 

 and functional, characterising the development and working 

 of the two nervous systems, and the security that it affords 

 against the occurrence of the explosions or "nerve storms," 

 so familiar to the clinical observer, by the allowance of 

 " points of exit " for pent-up nerve energy, whereby its 

 escape may be effected along secure and inhibited channels 

 into the peripheral regions of the general nervature, 

 without the occurrence of cataclysmic or disastrous con- 

 sequences ; hence the attainment of nervine equilibration, 

 or the measured production and distribution of nerve or 

 vital energy, is secured or made possible throughout the 

 entire dual nervatures by dynamic discharges into the 

 less, or faintly, nervous connective structural elements to 

 which they are distributed. 



Faultily effected nervine equilibration, from whatever 

 cause and to whatever degree, must always, therefore, rank 

 as a proportionately more likely occurrence in man than 

 in his nearest neighbours in the animal scale, and rationally 

 devised measures of prevention must consequently be 

 adopted in order to neutralise, or prevent it. 



Such diseases as epilepsy, spasm, etc., are relatively 

 more frequent in the human species than in the lower 

 animals, and we conclude that the reason for this is to 

 be found here ; we, therefore, bespeak a more profound 

 consideration of the problems of nerve force production, 

 storage, and distribution, with the involved principles of 

 nerve force equilibration, in order that the whole subject 

 should be raised to a higher and more scientific platform, 

 than it has hitherto occupied in applied medicine. 



Equilibrium, in its etymology, signifies an equipoised or 

 balanced state of things, and is applicable to conditions 

 of rest and motion of simple and complex bodies alike, 

 as well as to states of static and dynamic existence of 



