Chemico-Functional Integration 135 



activities. Let the performer be really motionless in every 

 part for one instant, and he falls. 



The treatment of tetany and its relation to internal se- 

 cretions, especially to that of the thyroid, by Eduard Phleps 

 in the work now under consideration, is another excellent il- 

 lustration of how interpretation may run in accordance with 

 this conception of the animal organism. The essence of the 

 section, as touching this question, is contained in the fol- 

 lowing: 



"On the ground of clinical symptoms authoritative clin- 

 icians like Eulenburg, Kahler and Nothnagel explained tet- 

 anus as a disease of the entire nervous system. Later it was 

 proved that this disease was not due to primary organic 

 changes of the nervous system, but to secondary functional 

 disorders. . . . The view of those authors, who refer the 

 disease to the simple effect of a substance of the epithelial 

 granules acting normally and continuously on the whole 

 nervous system, finds here a further development of that old 

 theory because for them the clinical picture of a regular 

 grouping of nervous stimulus- and response-phenomena 

 arises from an impairment of the close functional relation 

 between the nervous system and the epithelial granules ( Mac- 

 Callum, Chvostek jun., Biedl, Eppinger, Falta, Rudinger, 

 Jonas, et al.). In agreement with these authors we con- 

 ceive the action of the epithelio-secretive substance as that of 

 a hormone in the sense of Starling and Bayliss, which must 

 have its essential point of attack on certain reflex stations 

 of the central nervous system." 26 



Taking cognizance, now, of the fact that most if not all 

 the cells known to produce internal secretions arise embry- 

 onically from epithelium, as does also almost all nervous 

 tissue, we have the suggestion of a deep-seated combination 

 scheme, chemical-and-nervous, for integrating the organism. 

 The best investigated example of what is here referred to is 

 the suprarenal bodies. It is now fully established that the 



