DIVISION OF " NEURAL WORK" 383 



lest it be allowed to progress beyond the bounds of cure, 

 or even relief. 



That part of the organism, controlled by the sympa- 

 thetic nervature, will generally require the first attention, 

 and, it may be, that that attention will be all that is 

 required to obviate the involvement of the systemically 

 innervated structures, and the more pronounced evolution 

 of the neurasthenic phenomena. 



The physiological relationships of the two neuro- 

 musculatures are based, to a very large extent, on the 

 principle of reciprocity, the stock of nerve energy, 

 possessed by the entire combined nervatures, being 

 common and available for the work of either, or both, 

 and, thus can be drawn upon by either, or both, so long 

 as the histological continuity of the combined sympathetico- 

 systemic nerve media subsist ; any perversion of this 

 principle of reciprocity may, therefore, lead to most 

 serious inco-ordination, and neuro-muscular confusion, as 

 well as intellectual disturbance, when connected with the 

 highest cerebral " centres." Nutrition, the great central 

 function of the sympathetic nervature, is essential for every 

 detail of vital activity, both of its own structures, and 

 those of the systemic nervature ; it, therefore, is essential 

 for the neuro-muscular activities of the whole body, and 

 the maintenance of nerve energy, which may be considered, 

 in most essential respects, as equivalent to life itself. 



It may be assumed, as a principle, that every conscious 

 feeling, physiological and pathological, is realised by the 

 systemic nervature alone, and that, when such conscious 

 feeling emanates primarily from the sympathetic nerva- 

 ture, it does not become realisable by the systemic 

 sensory nervature, until it has passed outside of the 

 sympathetic nervature, the latter system, on no occasion, 

 appealing to the systemic sensorium, until it passes its 

 impulses into the related ganglia, and their systemic 

 neural communications, the exact histological appreciation 

 of which constitutes a clinical asset, of the greatest value, 

 in both diagnosis and treatment. Diseases of the viscera, 

 especially, afford examples of the truth of these remarks, 

 and it cannot be gainsaid that, when the structures, and 

 functional connections, of the two nervatures, are better 



