EXTRACT XXV. 



NEUROMA. 



NEUROMA is a disease of the proper nerve structures as 

 distinguished from the cerebro-spinal nerve adventitial 

 sheaths, which can be more fully, more easily, and more 

 intelligibly explained, than has been possible hitherto, by 

 the application of the principles for the truth of which we 

 have been contending. 



Inasmuch as it stands pretty much outside the great 

 subject of tumours, and is conditioned by laws emanating 

 for the most part from within the nervous system, it 

 occupies an exceptional position. 



Thus a true neuroma is not due, primarily, to circum- 

 stances connected with the neural blood circulatory system 

 proper, but to interference with one or other of those 

 inner or nerve circulations, which in this case begins 

 within one or many of the sheaths and contained columns 

 of semi-consistent or semi-fluid substance, called the 

 "white substance of Schwann," or the insulating covering 

 of the axis cylinder, hence the results of inflammatory 

 action are conspicuous by their absence, except when they 

 may have been accidentally induced by mechanical irrita- 

 tion or pressure. 



Neuromatous growths, or neuromata, must thus, 

 primarily, be developed within the nerve sheaths or neuri- 

 lemmae, and conform to their environments by ' ' growing " 

 or passively collecting in the direction and along the course 

 of these sheaths and the nerve trunk or trunks ; thereby 

 causing a bulging or varicosity of the sheath or sheaths 

 involved, which may attain a size varying, roughly speak- 



