INCIDENCE OF SKIN AFFECTIONS 55 



of lymph and plasm, or cerebro-spinal medullary and axis 

 cylinder substances, into the areas embraced within the 

 spheres of attack, plus the modifying influences of the 

 pathogenic factors which may happen to come on "the 

 scene of action" to modify the course of events and 

 determine final results. 



The lines of junction of the " spheres of influence" of 

 the two nervous systems, the systemic and sympathetic 

 respectively, seem to afford a more or less debatable area, 

 along which there is at times a possibility for leakage of 

 intra-nerve elements, material and dynamic, and where the 

 unwonted and unrestrained play of nerve energy on non- 

 inhibited structures leads to their neurolysis and to inter- 

 stitial distinctive changes, whereby the definitive elements 

 of both nervatures and their material belongings are 

 reduced to pathological waste, to be removed by systemic 

 hygiene or to become a prey to pathogenic vagabondage, 

 by which they are finally disposed of, or remain a more 

 or less permanent menace to the health of the surrounding 

 physiologically sound structures. 



The pain associated with these ailments, the solutions 

 of tissue continuity involved in their progress, the shorter 

 or longer continuance of the diseased condition, and the 

 ultimate results, locally and generally, of the morbid pro- 

 cesses, are one and all meted out by the leaking nervature, 

 while the intensity of the intercalated and dependent, 

 secondary and concomitant, destructive tissue phenomena 

 conform to the local conditions imposed by the anatomical 

 and histological relationships of the affected parts, or 

 areas, and the individual resisting powers of their subjects. 



Viewing as a whole the role of the nervous system in 

 its widest sense in the incidence of disease generally, it 

 would not be too much to say that it has more or less 

 to do with every morbid process entitled to be called a 

 disease, either of structure or function, and that without 

 the dynamic influences exercised by that system in every 

 physiological process, and by continuity in every patho- 

 logical departure from physiological standards of action, 

 disease itself, and premature death, would disappear, and 

 leave the race to run its life-course free from the limitations 

 imposed by its present vulnerable conditions and its con- 



