DIVISION OF "NEURAL WORK' 381 



tissue, surrounded by a fluid medium, in which it floats, 

 safe from shock, and friction, the nervous system, in its 

 dual formation, and unal functional role, vitalises, ener- 

 gises, and controls, the living and working of the body, 

 deputing the various departments of that work, to appro- 

 priate portions of that system, in combination with 

 appropriate portions of its non-nervous structures, and 

 controlling the whole, for the communal purposes of the 

 entire organism. 



While the insulation, and bufferage, provided by the 

 non-nervous elements, in this great pan-neuro-systemic 

 organisation, is of the most complete, and efFective, 

 character, it may be further claimed for it that it pro- 

 vides, simultaneously, a neuro-distributive medium equally 

 omnipresent, and effective, in the many nervine procedures 

 of reception and transmission, on the one hand, and of 

 resolution, and transmission, on the other, or, in other 

 words, of the receipt of sensory, and the transmission of 

 motor, nerve impulses. 



Nerve energy, here, may, in a sense, be regarded as, 

 the product of nervine secretory activity, and due to the 

 physiological receipt, independent production, and storage, 

 within the intra-cellular bodies, known as nucleoli, one of 

 whose functions, or, it may be, whose sole function, is, 

 the manipulation, so to speak, of nerve energy. This 

 most transcendental subject, however, we have elsewhere 

 dealt with it seems, therefore, unnecessary to deal further 

 with it here, beyond saying, that we have not, so far, had 

 reason to change our opinions thereon. 



Nerve energy cannot be produced, received, stored, 

 or distributed, by any other structure, than the nervous, 

 and it cannot be, by the nervous structure, unless that 

 structure be insulated and protected by meninges, and 

 their equivalent continuations, neither can it be, unless 

 these meninges, and their continuations, are, in turn, 

 surrounded by a layer, or layers, of cerebro-spinal fluid, 

 the presence of the latter, being essential for the passage 

 of nerve energy, both from without inwards, in answer to 

 stimuli, and from within outwards, as impulse, in the 

 most special, and specific, physiological manner. That 

 each division, of the great nervous system, can produce, 



