508 THE POSTERIOR PITUITARY AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 



prolonged tetany with it. Strychnine is even more pow- 

 erful in this particular, as is well known. 



In the course of the statements to which we have referred, 

 Foster, after ascribing the temporary paralysis observed after 

 operative interference to a condition "of the nature of shock," 

 remarks: "But, even giving full weight to this consideration, 

 there remains the fact that the cortical area is associated with 

 various co-ordinating and other nervous mechanisms belonging 

 to the limbs by such close ties that these are thrown into dis- 

 order when it is injured. And, side by side with this, we may 

 put the remarkable fact, previously stated, that during an 

 abnormal condition of the cortical area stimulation of the 

 area instead of producing the appropriate movements confined 

 to the limb may give rise to movements of other parts cul- 

 minating in epileptiform convulsions." 1 * 



If the word "associated" is given its full meaning, limbs 

 and co-ordinating mechanism constituting one class, and the 

 cortical surface the other, the hemispherical mantle of gray 

 matter being considered solely as a great sensory surface, the de- 

 mands of experimental evidence seem to us to be satisfied. 

 What are epileptic convulsions after all but manifestations of 

 excessive motor activity? . . . Can the latter be credited 

 to the cerebral cortex, as is now taught in text-books? Ob- 

 viously not, since experimental evidence proves that the cortex 

 has no motor properties per se. But irritation of this sensory 

 surface or an accumulation of physiological toxics, which peri- 

 odically becomes sufficiently great to so stimulate the supra- 

 renal system as to cause violent hypera3mia, not only of the sen- 

 sory cortex, but also of its executive mechanism, the middle 

 brain, are the clearly defined causes to which physiological and 

 chemical evidence points. Could the cortex without the middle 

 brain give rise to the same phenomena? That such is not the 

 case is shown by the preservation of all motor functions, in- 

 cluding co-ordination, after removal of the hemispheres. In- 

 deed, it is only when the middle brain is removed that the 

 experimental animal thus deprived of its sentient cortex and 

 of its dynamic center practically loses its identity as a living 

 thing. Hence it seems clear that the motor phenomena caused 



14 All italics are our own. 



