DISORDERS IN RELATION TO THE EYE 757 



terns in visceral control ( Starling) , while trie central nervous system con- 

 trols those organs which have been added more recently. 



Of sense organs, the first was taste, then smell, then hearing. Sight, 

 the most important sense, came rather late with development of higher 

 cerebral faculties (Mayo). Even memory is largely visual in most per- 

 sons. (Mayo). 



The sympathetic nerve system is the more primitive, in connection 

 with the endocrins, and there is autonomous action of non-striated muscle 

 in gut, heart, uterus, possibly in the iris. 



Ophthalmic Neuro-Endocrinology. The eye is one of the most impor- 

 tant, prolific, and basic sources of those activation patterns to which Crile 

 attaches so much significance as the adequate 'stimuli for activation of 

 the ductless glands and the production of the emotional secretions, adrenin 

 and thyroxin. 



The delicate reaction of the pupil to emotional and vascular states 

 and to the action of alkaloids is hardly equalled by the heart, which it 

 surpasses in its accessibility to observation and experiment. 



The pupillomotor action of alkaloids is the touchstone of their physi- 

 ological action, and at times of their chemical constitution. 



Lid-closure (winking) and tear-secretion are largely purposive proc- 

 esses controlled by nervous influences. That means, now, vegetative 

 states. 



The double control of vagus and sympathetic is expressed exquisitely 

 in the innervation of the iris, the sphincter relating to the former, the di- 

 latator pupillae to the latter, system, in logical accord with the control of 

 ring and longitudinal muscles in intestine, stomach and bladder, and, pos- 

 sibly cardiovascular apparatus. 



This control extends, also, to prominence of the globe, comparative 

 wideness of the lid-fissure, rate of winking and of tear secretion, and not 

 improbably, to intra-ocular tension. 



The importance of an endocrin organ is measured, in part, by the 

 degree of its control by the sympathetic (Crile). From this point of 

 view, the eye may well be considered an organ of internal secretion, having 

 in mind the aqueous as a biological secretion which is notoriously subject 

 to emotional variation, in addition to the manifest external secretion, the 

 tears, and the marked dependence of the pupil on secretogenic states, and 

 its interdependence with the heart action (Aschner reflex). 



The pupillomotor alkaloids which ophthalmologists know as mydri- 

 atics and meiotics, are typically and characteristically marked by dia- 

 metrically opposite action on the two vegetative systems. 



The development of emotional predispositions takes place under the 

 influence of activation patterns (Crile) arising from sensory impressions, 

 largely visual, as purposive adaptations of the organism (fear, anger, 

 love, etc.) in man and animals. Influence of nutrition and mode of life 



