THE SYSTEMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM 357 



exception of the non-functional, or passive, structural 

 elements of the nerve structure proper, and the interstitial 

 elements of the structures, such as muscles, subservient to 

 the functional purposes of the systemic nervous system, 

 generally ; these latter being supplied, necessarily, directly 

 from the blood circulation, through the agency of the 

 sympathetic nervous system. 



The systemic nervous system is entirely the product of 

 the sympathetic nervous system, according to these views, 

 and is elaborated and evolved, by it, in accordance with the 

 formative impulses resident in the embryonic organism, 

 whereby is realised the organic axiom, that " like produces 

 like," plus " progress." The sympathetic nervous system, 

 moreover, constitutes, in perpetuity, the living framework 

 by which it, the systemic nervous system, is supported, and 

 supplies the neuroglial pabulum on which it subsists, and 

 the neural nourishment, which it circulates along its axonal 

 fibral developments to become, in turn, the nutritive 

 pabulum of every texture in which they terminate primarily, 

 and, by histological continuity, secondarily. 



The limits of the nutritional functions of the systemic 

 nervous system, therefore, are reached, at the epidermis of 

 the skin, in which the afferent nervature terminates, and 

 where, the nutritional role completed, the erstwhile nutri- 

 tive materials, are finally shed, and in the medullary con- 

 tents of the skeleton, to which the voluntary musculature 

 is attached, and into which the efferent nervature pours, by 

 histologically continuous channels, its residuum of neural 

 plasma, to be dealt with by the active retro-haemogenetic 

 elements so widely distributed amongst these contents. 

 The cerebro-spinal lymph, and also the nervine nutritive 

 plasma, being at all times liable to invasion by pathogenic 

 agencies, become, necessarily, the bearers into every region 

 supplied by the systemic nervature of chemical, physical, 

 bacterial, or other materies morbi, where they leave them 

 to perform their pathological work, in accordance with the 

 laws of pathogenic evolution, when the result is determined, 

 by the operations of the vis medicatrix naturte^ plus, it may 

 be, the contributions of science, and art. 



Who will deny that, along these lines, nature delivers a 

 large proportion of her pathogenic agencies, to accomplish 



