426 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



easier channels of exit for the escape of what may be called 

 recurrent or reflex nerve force, than motor nerves do, and 

 that the very frequent occurrence of herpetic eruptions, in 

 connection with febrile complaints, is an evidence of this. 

 This latter statement, moreover, might be supplemented by 

 the observation that spasm, local or general, is likewise 

 very frequently a consequence of reflex motor nerve 

 excitation in connection with numerous ailments. Be this 

 as it may, we further draw attention to the similarity, or 

 parallelism, which may be said to exist between an attack 

 of herpes zoster and an epileptic seizure, inasmuch as they 

 may both be said to be " nerve storms," the latter 

 involving muscular contraction, and the former evolving 

 pain and the effusion of serous fluid, besides the breaking 

 down of the surrounding sanguineous elements by neurolysis. 

 It will thus be seen that the principle of the duplex current 

 is at work in both the motor and sensory systems of nerves, 

 and that many diseases might be cited to illustrate the 

 extent of its operation. 



Along with the phenomenon of the duplex current in 

 pathological conditions involving the affection of the sensory 

 system of nerves, as distinguished from the motor, is 

 frequently the production of acute pain, which here must 

 be regarded as due to the discharge, from the sensory nerve 

 terminals, of nerve force a strange or morbid function- 

 in contradistinction to the receipt of impressions their 

 normal function. 



The genesis of the pain here alluded to, and the sense 

 of feeling of the pain itself, are most probably to be found 

 in violent molecular agitation of the intra-neural substance 

 of the nerve terminals, and probably neural rupture, with 

 subsequent escape of both neural material contents and 

 force. Such diseases as those mentioned, epilepsy, con- 

 vulsions, spasms, local and general, with pain, tingling, 

 itching, herpes in all its varieties, as well as many other 

 diseases and individual symptoms, may all be described as 

 leakages of nerve force, due to nerve explosions of greater 

 or less severity, or violence, and of shorter, or longer, 

 duration, and emanating from either the motor, or sensory, 

 divisions of the nervous system. 



