46 SMITH ELY JELLIFFE 



so often inferred concerning lipoid substances, but as one of a series of 

 conversion products in the elaboration and discharge of the definite chem- 

 ical substances which serve as specific stimuli for the special receptors 

 which entitles the pineal to be considered as an organ with a definite 

 function or group of functions. Certainly the lipoid material related 

 to the visual purple of higher photoreceptors, also found in parts of the 

 pineal complex in other forms, must be considered more in the light of an 

 active transforming material for light energies, rather than the inert 

 substance it is usually viewed as being. 



Muscular Syndromes. Attention has been directed to the possible 

 photic activities of the phyletically older components of the pineal com- 

 plex. These may be assumed to have retained some phototropic func- 

 tions. Such phototropisms are important in determining muscular adjust- 

 ments. By what neuronic associations has not been worked out, but some 

 evidence has been accumulated to show that a connection between the 

 pineal complex and the metabolism of the phylectically older unstriped 

 muscular tissue seems to exist. Thus in a group of muscular dystrophies 

 the anisotropic disc portion of the compound muscle, which the researches 

 of de Boer, Pekelharing, Pieron and others have tended to show are under 

 vegetative nervous component control, is involved and peculiar muscular 

 dystrophic syndromes have apparently resulted. Reference must be made 

 to the work of Timme, Janney and Goodhardt, and others for more 

 extended consideration. 



Speculative investigation of atonic muscular states of the viscera 

 (Hirschsprung's disease types, etc.), and their relation to pineal-adrenal 

 dysharmonies are suggested in association with these observations. 



