134 The Unity of the Organism 



whether the patient is sympathetico- or vagotonic, the sym- 

 patheticotonic type of the disease being characterized by 

 marked protrusion of the eyeballs, especially rapid heart 

 beat, absence of sweats, diarrhea, and disturbance of the 

 respiration; while the vagotonic type is characterized by 

 slight protrusion of the eyes and increase of heart action, 

 by outbreaks of sweat, diarrhea, and by faultiness in the 

 respiratory rhythm. 



While some observers, like Falta, do not believe the facts 

 now known can be definitely classed in this manner, the ef- 

 fort, justified by some positive knowledge, has at least the 

 merit of specifying to some extent the intricate reciprocal 

 action between the thyroid apparatus and the nervous sys- 

 tem, and also between the different portions of the auto- 

 nomic system; and to this extent all students of the subject 

 bear witness. Thus Falta : "In my opinion everything speaks 

 for the fact that in Basedow's disease the entire nervous 

 system is in a condition of over-excitement and that the 

 pictures presented by the vegetative nervous system are as 

 uncommonly manifold and always changing." 



The indication of prime importance in this is that in these 

 antagonistic divisions of the autonomic nervous and endo- 

 crinal glandular systems, operating together with the other 

 portions of the organism, there is a balancing-off or equil- 

 ibrating apparatus through which the whole complex of vege- 

 tative functions is carried on, all of which in turn are con- 

 nected with the psychic functions. Probably no better il- 

 lustration can be found of the conception of the organism as 

 fundamentally dynamic. According to this conception nor- 

 mality, both in function and in structure, consists not in 

 rigid, invariable activities and organs, but in a ceaseless play 

 of constitutively antagonistic forces and structures. By this 

 conception the whole life of the organism, physical and psy- 

 chical, may be crudely likened to the performance of the 

 tight-rope walker, which depends on numberless balancing 



